


'cause heartbreak is savvy (and love is a bitch)

by undeliveredtruth



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: (Only Weed), Alternate Universe - College/University, Drinking, Friends With Benefits, I'm not kidding, M/M, Mingi is the most patient person ever, Obliviousness, Recreational Drug Use, Sexting, Shotgunning, Side Hongjoong/Yeosang, Side Yunho/San, Wooyoung takes a long time to get his shit together, lots of smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:21:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 38,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26192575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/undeliveredtruth/pseuds/undeliveredtruth
Summary: Long story short, Wooyoung has gotten himself an Arrangement. A wonderful little deal involving Song Mingi (more accurately, Song Mingi’s monster cock), and no-frills, no strings attached, three times a weekfantasticsex.The thing is: Wooyoung Does Not Want A Relationship. What that is and what they are, however, gets complicated sometime between the sixtieth and eightieth time they hook up.And suddenly, Wooyoung finds himself with a lot to figure out.
Relationships: Jung Wooyoung/Song Mingi
Comments: 87
Kudos: 275





	1. you got a way of keeping me comin’ back to back

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! Welcome to my baby, please read this before jumping in~
> 
> First of all, I have to thank my dear [Kaeri](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeyiuna/pseuds/kaeyiuna) for putting the image of this woogi in my head and screaming with me about it on many instances. <3 I also have to thank the lovely [Ele](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eledae/pseuds/eledae) and [Tay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yoongoogles/pseuds/yoongoogles) for putting up with my crying over characterization, literally reading through this at every step, and giving it more love than I could ever be capable to; without your encouragement, I would've never finished this, so thank you from the bottom of my heart! <3
> 
> A few notes: This happens in the US because I wanted it to happen there for the exploration, and for the things that wouldn’t be possible in Korea. Also, for a significant chunk of events to happen when they go back, so it’s purposeful, I promise. Also, San and Hongjoong are Korean-American, which you’ll be able to tell, but just putting that out there now so people don’t think it’s weird.
> 
> Also, there are a couple woogi hook-up scenes that happen after they had a few drinks or smoked weed. It’s all clearly consensual and they're not intoxicated, but if that might trip you up, hmu before you read and I can explain it more in depth!
> 
> This story is actually complete, so I will be posting a chapter each next two Sundays! Hope you enjoy it! <3

“Do you have time?” Mingi asks, hands already under Wooyoung’s shirt, pulling it off his head. When Wooyoung resurfaces, he makes quick work of the knot on Mingi’s sweatpants.

“Maybe 20 minutes,” he remembers to answer.

And _fuck,_ Mingi is going commando. Wooyoung is _so fucking thirsty_ he might cry if Mingi doesn’t get his dick in him in the next three seconds.

He has an essay he needs to do tonight, he justifies pushing Mingi down on his bed and straddling him; he doesn’t have any time to waste. So he’s come _prepared,_ because if he lets Mingi finger him, Wooyoung will lose his mind and he’ll be here until tomorrow morning.

Like Cinderella, Wooyoung needs to leave before midnight, or his grades will turn into a troll.

He pulls his fingers out of himself and grips Mingi’s cock behind him, sinking down centimeter by agonizing centimeter. God, he’s _thick._

Thick and long, so big in him Wooyoung feels split open, impaled every time he rides Mingi like this. If he only had a big cock that would’ve been one thing, but Mingi is awfully good at moving his hips even from under Wooyoung, smoothly rolling circles inside him. He has no hope to hold back any sort of moans, loud and drawn out as Mingi bottoms out time and time again, loud slaps of his skin against Wooyoung’s.

 _Ugh,_ is Mingi great at this. This is why Wooyoung is a regular at his place two to three times a week—to get fully and thoroughly screwed, guts rearranged, mind blown, all that good shit. He has godlike dick game—Wooyoung would be dumb to give that up.

And okay. Okay, he can admit Mingi’s kind of cute laying there, unmoving hands on Wooyoung’s hips, looking up at him with big eyes like Wooyoung hung the stars in the sky. And _okay, fine,_ Wooyoung can also admit he loves the attention—so if he arches his ass a little more so it _pops_ and puts on overexcited_moans.mp3, well, that’s his own business.

“Wooyoung… Wooyoung, I’m close, fuck…”

Well, Wooyoung _isn’t._ He shoots Mingi a look— _don’t you dare—_ and Mingi bites his lip in his mouth, eyes low and lidded. His fingers tighten on Wooyoung’s hips.

“Come on, change.” And Wooyoung pulls off Mingi, gasping as the head of his cock catches on his rim, and turns around on his hands and knees.

Behind him, he hears Mingi moan, strung-off and broken. “I… I don’t think this is better.”

“I swear, if you don’t hurry… it’s _definitely_ not going to be better.”

Thankfully, Mingi moves. Wooyoung hears the lube cap open, and feels the cold liquid drip straight down his rim, Mingi grinding between his cheeks to slick himself back up. His cock catches on his hole once, twice, and he slips back in, stretching Wooyoung open. He regrets telling Mingi what he likes; he regrets it _all_ right now.

 _God._ Mingi’s dick should honestly be illegal. That, his big hands enveloping the entirety of Wooyoung’s cheeks, his big… everything.

He finds himself close to the edge when Mingi thrusts deep inside him, twice, three more times. He comes into the condom with a punched-off moan and a warning of Wooyoung’s name; it’s filthy, how Wooyoung enjoys the feeling of Mingi grabbing onto his hips and shoving himself as deep into Wooyoung as he can go, desperately moving his hands over Wooyoung after.

And he keeps going, one hand on Wooyoung’s cock, twisting his wrist at the top and over his slit. Wooyoung doesn’t last long, coming all over Mingi’s sheets with a moan, arching his back to feel Mingi brush against his spot.

Whew, Wooyoung needed this. In those few moments of breathing, completely silent, Mingi’s hold loosens on him. He feels his limbs relaxing, the tension in his body disappearing with every second he spends under him.

When Mingi pulls out, Wooyoung winces at the feeling; it’s always strange, to say the least. The fact that it’s over always leaves him feeling awkward _—_ post-nut clarity isn’t quite clarity for Wooyoung, but very much the opposite.

He bounds off the bed before he has time to overthink, grabbing some squares off the roll of toilet paper on Mingi’s desk to clean up and putting on his strewn clothing. By the time Mingi comes back, wearing sweatpants and with a towel in hand, Wooyoung’s already pulling his sweatshirt over his head.

“Thanks, that was fun. I’ll see you next week?”

Mingi nods, stuck in the door. Without thinking much, Wooyoung leans up on his tiptoes to press a kiss to his cheek on his way out.

On the walk back to his dorm, at the midnight it probably is, he’s sure he’s limping. Two guys passing by him snort at him, and perhaps for good reason: his make-up is probably smudged to hell, his sweatshirt is rumpled, and the way he’s walking gives it all away.

But fuck it—Wooyoung thinks this sort of walk of shame is dignified. Because it is. He got dick, he is relaxed, he’s by himself, and he can deal with everything that comes his way for the next few hours, all the tension gone. Thank _god_ Mingi has a single. Who even has a single room nowadays?

Well, Mingi, that’s who. Mingi and Yunho, rich bastards. But thank _god_ for their families, rich CEO daddies, or whoever got them those, because, well, it’s convenient.

He can deal with Mingi as well; he can deal with the fact that Mingi is clingy, and sort of annoying sometimes with the way he wants to tease the fact that they’re fucking, even when they both agreed they won’t tell. He can’t even mind that Mingi sometimes selfishly comes first because he doesn’t go soft, and he’s never let Wooyoung leave his room without a mind-blowing orgasm.

And well, Wooyoung is a double major—he has a tight schedule and he needs a good fuck two to three times a week, but only on days when he doesn’t have evening class or dance practice. Mingi’s readily available whenever Wooyoung texts, and his _cock…_ long, thick like nobody’s business, and slightly curved up? The stuff of dreams. Wooyoung never thought he’d be that attached to something in college, would never let himself… but _that_ is an exception.

“Who are you texting?” San asks, the entire table’s attention suddenly on Wooyoung. He hits his half-eaten plate of vegetables when he puts his phone back down on the cafeteria table.

“Just a friend from elementary school. I found them randomly a few days ago again,” he answers, smiling as he takes another bite. His phone pings again and he picks it up; she’s sent him another photo of the two of them in school, and Wooyoung looks even more ridiculous in this one, pulling at his ears and tongue out along with her.

“Just a friend?” Yunho teases from next to him.

“Jealous, darling?” he bats his eyelashes up at Yunho, tucking himself into his side with a bite of his lip. Yunho lets out a big laugh and puts his hand around Wooyoung’s shoulder, making him chuckle in return. Wooyoung picks up his phone and unlocks it, shoving the phone at Yunho’s face.

Yunho is visibly entertained by the photo, turning it to San, Mingi, Seonghwa, and Jongho at the other sides of the table. His phone gets passed around, joined by laughter from most of them.

“I was cute since then, wasn’t I?”

“Again?” Hongjoong joins them at the table, along with Yeosang, coming straight from their vocal class. The phone gets passed to them too, and Hongjoong sends it back to him with a huffed laugh.

Yunho’s hand is still on Wooyoung’s shoulder when he gets his phone back, face up, and Wooyoung relaxes into his side, his food abandoned.

“No worries, you don’t need to be jealous. It’s a _female_ friend,” he bats his eyes to Yunho as he answers Yeseul with a string of laughter and a _we were so cute, we need to redo this photo when I come back. “_ And she’s seen me smack myself with a swing too many times,”

“Whew. I was really getting worried,” Yunho fakes a sigh of relief, dramatically swiping his hand over his forehead.

Wooyoung chuckles. It’s always been a joke between the two of them, how much he likes Yunho. It’s kind of their thing, to cuddle into Yunho’s chest or whatever and bat his eyelashes and ask Yunho to call him cute. Yunho welcomes it when he’s joking and when he’s not, when he’s serious and really needs the comfort of a Yunho cuddle; he plays it up when they’re with their friends even, slides their fingers together, throws a hand around Wooyoung’s shoulder. They’re good friends, Wooyoung enjoys the attention, and Yunho’s playing it up for someone. That’s fine.

Mingi’s eyes on him over the table feel like lasers. Tiny little red streaks of light pointed straight to Wooyoung’s forehead—they don’t leave him for the rest of the meal. Wooyoung ignores them, and turns to Yeosang to ask him if he heard about the new teacher from their dance program.

That evening, when he gets back from his run and catches wifi again, there’s a message sitting in his inbox. From Mingi. It’s a YouTube link; Wooyoung opens it and the catchy intro to a familiar song blasts through his airpods.

The first few lyrics filter through his consciousness; he stops taking his sweaty clothes off.

_Usually don’t be fallin’, be fallin’ fallin’ first_

_You got a way of keeping me comin’ back to back_

Wooyoung pulls the earphones out of his ears and snaps them into their case.

“Are you coming?”

“Where?” Wooyoung asks, buttoning his jeans and pulling the zipper back up. Mingi’s still laying on his bed, naked as the day he was born, streaks of Wooyoung’s come on his stomach.

Wooyoung’s not going to judge, but… well. He’s judging. He himself desperately needs a shower, and so does Mingi.

“To the party tomorrow.”

“Maybe. Got a paper to finish this weekend.”

“Come anyway? It’s once a semester.”

“Mmm, I don’t know yet.”

He stops to look at Mingi on the way out.

“Thanks for the song rec.”

“You liked it?”

“I knew it. San showed me some TikToks or whatever.”

“I’m glad.” Mingi throws a hint of a smirk. “Bye, Wooyoung.”

Wooyoung leaves, but with something hanging in the back of his mind: the twist to Mingi’s lips, and a vague, stupid beat to the worst kind of catchy pop song playing over and over in his head.

_When you kiss me I know you don’t give two fucks_

_But I still want your savage love_

It is spite and a Four Loko that gets Wooyoung through his essay before Saturday evening. Desperate times call for desperate measures; he crunches the can into the garbage and cringes at the sight of it there.

Trash. Literally trash.

San looks up from his bed when Wooyoung is done. His back bones crack when he gets up, San laughing an obnoxious cackle in his direction.

“Party tonight?”

“You bet your ass. If I have to see anything economics-related for the rest of the weekend, I’m throwing myself out of the window.”

“What will you want to wear?” San asks in heavily accented Korean. Wooyoung squeezes his cheek when he passes by to get to their closets; he finds it _so cute_ whenever San starts practicing his Korean with him out of his own accord. His classes are paying off in a big way.

“Something slutty,” he answers San in Korean as well, but soon realizes there is no way San knows that word yet. “Uh… something that will get eyes on me.”

San travels to Wooyoung’s closet and pulls out Wooyoung’s satin black shirt, and then his pair of black jeans ripped up to the thigh.

“Then… this?”

“Ah. You have taste, San-ah.”

The party is loud, to say the least; loud, packed, and animated—even for the large room, the hundred or more people packed like sardines and dancing are quite something. Wooyoung feels a bead of sweat drip down his back just at the thought of being in the middle of it, feeling the heat around him.

He can’t believe he almost considered skipping this; this is the biggest party of the semester done specifically for the LGBTQ+ students on campus, and by far the most fun. He’s had the time of his life the past two, and he’s sure he’ll do the same today, excitement throbbing through him.

The last party was actually when he met Yunho and Mingi, he realizes, introduced by Hongjoong to KSA and them in the same day. It’s actually also when he started hooking up with Mingi, in the bathroom of it. Mingi sucked Wooyoung off and then let Wooyoung wrap both hands around his dick; Wooyoung couldn’t stop thinking about it for a week before he caved and texted Mingi back.

And then somehow, they have become part of the same friend group. San, his roommate back then and still now, adored both of them, and so did Seonghwa, Hongjoong’s best friend; Yeosang was the semi-unwilling participant who secretly loves them all. This year, Yunho had befriended Jongho in a class Jongho should not be in, and in which he’s absolutely obliterating everyone, and Jongho has somehow found all of them tolerable over the past few weeks. And so it is.

Wooyoung doesn’t regret it at all, even if it is awkward to have to navigate himself around Yunho’s schedule when he comes and leaves from Mingi’s dorm, and cannot tell San anything about who he’s hooking up with on the regular. It’s good dick, and he enjoys it.

Striding to the edge of the party, he quickly finds Seonghwa and Yunho. From his earlier text, Yunho already has two drinks in his hand, one which he quickly passes to Wooyoung in lieu of a greeting. It’s rum and coke, or more like half a cup of rum with a splash of coke, and it’s cold; Wooyoung downs half of it at once, the contrast between the cold drink and the burn in his throat his favorite part.

Pulling them towards the dance floor, Wooyoung leans up to whisper in Yunho’s ear. “Is everyone else here?”

“Almost. Mingi and Yeosang are, yeah. Hongjoong and Jongho are coming in a bit.”

Oh. Yeosang told him he wasn’t coming, the _liar._ Wooyoung will need to have a chat with him later.

“You look good,” he shouts with a grin in Yunho’s ear. He’s clearly dressed to impress; Wooyoung doesn’t fault him. Yunho sends him a grin in return, and puts his hands on Wooyoung’s hips.

Well then. Wooyoung doesn’t mind making a scene.

Back tucked to Yunho’s front, Wooyoung stares right at San as he swivels his hips to the side and rolls his body along with Yunho to the heavy beat. Yunho’s hands on his waist guide him along, chin tucked to the side of his head, on his temple; he’s sure Yunho’s smirking. Wooyoung puts a playful smile on his own face and lets Yunho manhandle him to the beat however he wants.

Before suddenly, Seonghwa pulls Yunho’s arm and him away from Wooyoung’s body to whisper in his ear.

“We’re going to get some drinks. Do you want to join,” Yunho shouts in his ear. Wooyoung considers it for a second, but he loves this song. So he shakes his head and shouts to Yunho to get him one too before they leave.

San stays with him, moving to the beat; there’s a question in his eyes. Wooyoung smiles at him, raises his eyebrows. _What are you gonna do?_

But San only raises his own eyebrows, and when Wooyoung feels two hands on his hips, he gets why.

 _Is he cute?_ he mouths to San, who only shrugs with a _not bad_ twist to his mouth. Well then, that’s fine.

“Hello, beautiful,” a voice whispers in his ear. “Can I dance with you?”

“Sure,” Wooyoung says even though he doesn’t think he’ll be heard, pressing back into the guy. He’s quite a bit taller than Wooyoung, maybe close to Yunho’s height; he feels a hot breath at his temple, and turns around after he watches San leave with a wink.

“What’s your name?” The guy asks him, and Wooyoung leans up to whisper in his ear.

“Wooyoung.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Jason.”

And that’s it. The guy’s a good dancer; nowhere near as good as Yunho, but he can hold a beat, and that’s more than enough for Wooyoung. For one song, he lets himself move to the beat, enjoying the feeling of a body on his—hands on his hips, chest pressed to Wooyoung’s own.

He’s no stranger to this feeling, really; he’s kissed people at parties before— and he recognizes the look in the guy’s eyes when he bends down. Wooyoung nods, and then there are lips on his, and a tongue quickly, maybe too quickly, sneaking into his mouth.

The whole thing is sort of anticlimactic, really, but what would you expect from something of the sort? There’s no... heat pooling in his gut, moans he can’t hold back, dirty, intense pleasure, but. It’s nice.

Suddenly, the tongue is on the left side of his neck instead, and there are hands moving down, down, to grip at his lower back, slowly traveling even further to pull him up. And… Wooyoung feels like the guy thinks it won’t end here, but Wooyoung doesn’t want to give him hope that more will happen. Because it won’t.

Wooyoung pulls back, pulling out his phone from his back pocket. Pretending it vibrated, he looks at it, unlocks it, and pretends to also send a text. And then he raises his eyes to the guy, and mouths a _sorry, friends texted,_ eyes large and apologetic.

The guy nods; thank _fuck._ Wooyoung is always ready to deal with someone who doesn’t get it, but he always prefers not to. Hands untangle from him.

“It was nice to meet you anyway. Maybe I’ll see you around?”

Wooyoung nods with a smile and turns around, putting his phone in his pocket. When he looks up, he catches sight of his friends; Mingi’s strawberry-blonde hair and Yunho’s peach-colored one stand out.

There’s a weight on Wooyoung’s neck, on his lips; something of a physical memory, and he needs to feel it _gone._ Sleeve wiping at his neck, he catches Mingi’s eyes from across the room, heavy on his own.

_Oh._

It’s not an unfamiliar feeling. Wooyoung is used to Mingi staring at him, when they’re with their friends and not. Mingi’s eyes have something in them, so heavy Wooyoung knows he’d recognize the feeling of Mingi’s gaze on him anywhere, could distinguish it from any other.

But he knows now Mingi’s seen. Something curls in his chest; something bizarre, something akin to satisfaction. Maybe he _wanted_ Mingi to see.

Striding to his friends, he throws a hand around Hongjoong, letting him talk in his ear. “Had fun?”

“Mhm.”

“He was cute. Didn’t feel like going further?”

Wooyoung shakes his head. “Nah, not really in the mood for it. Wanted to hang out with you all.”

Seonghwa hands him his drink when he gets closer; Wooyoung downs the rest of it and starts dancing, letting the music take over him.

Three, four more drinks later, Seonghwa and Hongjoong disappear. Yeosang goes home, needing to work on his midterm, and Jongho leaves as well, to walk him home and work on his own stuff.

And then it’s just him, San, Yunho, and Mingi. _What a combination,_ he thinks with a snort, earning himself a raise of his eyebrow from San.

“What’s up?”

“Nothing,” he dismisses him, turning his gaze to Mingi. The alcohol buzzes in his body, and when he looks at him...

He sees Mingi’s eyes turn to him as well, the way his lip is half bitten in his mouth… and feels the familiar swirl in his gut, the heat pooling down, _down._ Mingi’s eyes are a little bit unfocused, gaze switching down to Wooyoung’s lips.

God, he’s _so obvious._

He turns to San, struggling to contain the rising excitement in his body. “Have fun,” he grins as an excuse, waving a hand to Yunho with the same grin. Maybe San will do something about his obvious crush, _finally._

And then he throws Mingi a glance. _Follow me_ , it says, leaving no room for debate or any consideration. Mingi does, whispering something in Yunho’s ear.

God, Mingi’s eyes on him. Wooyoung’s so fucked up for enjoying that as much as he does, Mingi’s attention on him so undivided, so intense.

He _loves_ eyes on him like that. Mingi _is_ intense, in everything he does… that’s who he is, and when that’s concentrated on Wooyoung, when his lidded eyes look at Wooyoung like he wants to _eat_ him…

 _Fuck_ , Wooyoung is so turned on already, heat stirring low in his belly. The alcohol makes him just a bit more impatient, a bit more excited as he pulls Mingi in the room of the one-room bathroom, the one people know less about in this building.

What does it say about him? That he didn’t give a fuck who could’ve seen them because _god,_ Mingi’s _lips_ on his, the way his hands pull Wooyoung’s shirt out of his pants, the kiss dirty, filthy, _way_ too wet—Mingi kisses like that, impatient, moving like he wants to shove his tongue down Wooyoung’s throat, and Wooyoung would hate it with anyone else but Mingi is…

But with Mingi, it only makes him arch his back, letting Mingi unbutton his shirt and tug at his back, at his ass, lifting Wooyoung on his tiptoes and shoving him against the door. It _hurts,_ Wooyoung’s shoulder blades hitting it, and he digs a hand in Mingi’s shoulder; Mingi eats the hiss from his mouth.

And it might be the alcohol, but Wooyoung knows it isn’t, how his head spins when Mingi gets a hand in his tight jeans, cupping his already half-hard cock, _tight._ He wants to hate that he told Mingi about it—in the heat of the moment, begging for Mingi to fuck him good and rough and _heavy_ , because now Mingi uses it against him at every opportunity he has.

 _Fuck._ Mingi undoes the zipper on his jeans, pulls it down, pulls his boxers down as well just enough to pull Wooyoung’s cock out of them, hitting the cold air. Wooyoung _hisses_ in Mingi’s hair, his’s lips tracing down the left side of his neck, _biting,_ but not enough to leave a mark, just enough to tease the pain out of Wooyoung. That he _can._

He pulls Mingi on him from his hips, the outline of his hard cock pressing on his thigh. Mingi rubs up on him at around the same rhythm he tugs on Wooyoung’s cock, sort of dry, sort of too tight… or just right, _maybe,_ he pulls Mingi’s hand to his mouth, looking straight into his eyes as he licks from the bottom to the top of his fingers, taking them in his mouth to get them nice and wet. Mingi groans at the sight, twitching against him to press himself harder, getting his hand right back on Wooyoung’s cock. And _yes,_ like this, Mingi’s wrist twisting at the top of his cock, rubbing circles with his thumb on the slit of Wooyoung’s cock... Wooyoung buries his fingers in his shoulders and _shudders._

“Please _, please…”_

Wordlessly, Mingi speeds up his hand, filthy wet sounds over Wooyoung’s cock; the way he’s pressing into Wooyoung’s thigh, pinning him to the door…

“Woo…” Mingi groans in his neck, biting down on Wooyoung’s collarbone. Wooyoung would shoo him off, the _marks_ , _Mingi goddammit,_ but it feels kind of good, the sting of teeth where Mingi presses his lips and groans again, vibrations traveling down Wooyoung’s chest and straight to his stomach. _Fuck._

“I’m gonna come, I’m gonna come, _Mingi, please,”_ Wooyoung shivers under his touch, and it’s almost ridiculous how quick he feels so close to the edge. Mingi fits a hand over his ass and pulls Wooyoung into him, holding him so close, so tightly Wooyoung feels the coil in the bottom of his stomach wind and wind and wind; he closes his eyes and tenses up in anticipation, knees buckling under him. If Mingi didn’t have such a strong grip on him, he knows he’d collapse. But he does, holding Wooyoung up so he can grind up against his thigh, the tip of Wooyoung’s cock hitting Mingi’s shirt with every thrust.

God, this is fucking _ridiculous;_ Wooyoung tips his head back and laughs, the room spinning with him, cackle breaking into a moan when Mingi presses closer on a thrust, dragging Wooyoung over the rough material of his clothes. He feels raw, stripped down of everything holding him together, like he always does when he’s with Mingi.

 _Fuck._ Wooyoung tips his head down and Mingi immediately leans to kiss him, rough, heavy, letting Wooyoung slip his tongue against his without any rhythm. Mingi rubs at his cock a couple more times, two, three; Wooyoung bites his bottom lip between his teeth and _comes._ _Hard._

All over Mingi’s shirt, probably, Mingi kissing the whines from his mouth as Wooyoung lets go, boneless, feels the tension leave his body. Shivers travel through him, held up entirely by the weight of Mingi pinning him against the door, his hand traveling over Wooyoung’s ass; and he _comes_ and _comes_ until he feels entirely empty, lax, settled; _free._

Mingi fists at his cock until Wooyoung pushes him off with a whine, the overstimulation hitting his body. He’s too helpless to do much more than put Mingi’s hands on his hips instead, telling Mingi to use him. Like a ragdoll.

And Mingi obeys, pulling Wooyoung against him without any rhyme or reason, getting off just on rubbing against him. And maybe it’s ridiculous, but the thought of it gets to Wooyoung, hands locked tight around Mingi’s shoulders, so he can kiss him, help him along the same way he’s helped Wooyoung. Mingi wants him so bad that all he needs is to rub against him—he finds Wooyoung _so hot_ that he doesn’t even want to take himself out of his pants and get himself off, or make Wooyoung get him off.

It’s kind of funny, definitely a power trip for Wooyoung’s fuzzy brain as he lets Mingi kiss at his neck, bury his teeth under his collarbones, where Wooyoung lets him. He feels when Mingi comes, feels him tense up over him, hold on to his hips so tight Wooyoung feels his cock twitch at the pain, as spent and exhausted as he is.

Because he is. He collapses bodily against the door when Mingi lets go of him with a wince.

“Serves you right, for being impatient,” Wooyoung comments, noticing how uncomfortable Mingi is. He should maybe shut up, considering that’s his own come staining the crotch of Mingi’s pants, on his hand which Mingi quickly washes off under the water and attempting to save his dark jeans in the process.

“Please shut up,” he watches Mingi stumble, and then realizes just how unlikely it is that he’ll manage to peel himself from this door. Maybe he’ll fall asleep here, cock out in the open air. Alcohol and orgasms might not be the best combination, in retrospect.

But he needs to go home. And sleep in his own bed.

Now that… well, now that they’re done, Wooyoung realizes Mingi might be slightly more drunk than him from the way he crouches over the sink, rests a hand on the wall. A pang of guilt shoots through him, real and heavy.

“Can I… help?”

“No. I’m fine, I don’t care about these,” and Wooyoung sees him give up on his pants, turning the water tap off. And then… “Fuck,” he exclaims, tapping the pockets of his pants.

“What?”

“I don’t have my keys. I lost them today. I was going to go home with Yunho.”

“And why can’t you?”

“I don’t wanna bother him,” Mingi throws; Wooyoung does his zipper back up on his jeans, trying to look presentable (and quickly giving up). “He’s probably hooking up with his crush.”

Wooyoung throws him an incredulous glance; if it isn’t San, Wooyoung will have his _throat._

 _“Damn,”_ Mingi swears, low and annoyed.

Wooyoung keeps quiet. Mingi unlocks the door behind him and Wooyoung follows him back, absentmindedly walking towards the party.

And then he sees it. Yunho pressing San up against a wall in the corner, tongue in his mouth and San’s hands neatly tucked into his shirt.

“What. Are you jealous of San?” Mingi asks him, way too close to Wooyoung’s ear.

Wooyoung looks at them again and tries to gauge what he feels. It feels… kind of friend-level incestuous, really. Maybe? San is his best friend, and Yunho is Mingi’s.

“Fuck off,” he snorts at Mingi. “Just sleep in my room. I bet you San won’t be there tonight.”

 _No._ He feels absolutely nothing about Yunho and San.

Besides hope, maybe, that they’ve finally gotten their shit together. Absolute insane pride for San for finally acting up on it; maybe his Korean lessons have done him good.

He won’t ask twice; he strides out of the building, knowing Mingi will follow. Wooyoung doesn’t really care if he does or not.

Mingi does, his long legs quickly catching up with Wooyoung. At least they both can walk, and sort of in a straight line; Wooyoung thinks the ground is slightly unsteady under his legs, but it’s fine. If he had to carry Mingi home too, he might’ve thrown a fit.

Thankfully, Mingi doesn’t talk—Wooyoung doesn’t feel like it either. The silence of the campus without the noise of the party is odd _;_ Wooyoung hears the staccato noises their feet make on the pavement, his breath, Mingi’s breath even, sometimes. It feels fuzzy though, behind a wall of cotton. That’s what he gets for drinking and then wanting to have sex.

Reaching the door of their dorm, swiping his ID against it, Wooyoung realizes Mingi has never been in his room. They’ve always hooked up in Mingi’s room, never in his own. And it makes sense, but it’s still… strange, weirdly. Somehow invasive, but his brain is too much right now to try to figure out why.

He turns the key in the lock, presses the light switch on the right side of the room. Mingi steps in behind him, dropping his shoes at the entrance. It’s different in the light to have Mingi next to him, such a contrast from the darkness of the party and the artificial low light of the bathroom.

“Wanna shower?” Wooyoung asks.

“Yeah. Can I… borrow something?”

Wooyoung goes to his closet, pulling off a towel, a large pair of sweatpants, and a logo shirt that he thinks might fit Mingi, finding his spare body wash and handing it to him as well. Mingi’s waist is ridiculously small for how… _big_ he is, so they might; he hands them to Mingi and goes to find his own.

It’s awkwardly silent, and indeed, much worse with the lights on. He hasn’t really had the experience of spending time with Mingi by themselves after they hooked up much, or at least not in recent memory, which is also part of the reason why Wooyoung likes going to Mingi’s room; he can leave right after without any fuss.

But now, Mingi follows Wooyoung to the showers. The room is still spinning the littlest bit, but there’s nothing more sobering than bright lights and the cold water of the shower right when you turn the water on. Wooyoung hears Mingi turn on his own shower next to him, and lets his mind unfocus.

When he steps out, he feels significantly better. Like he washed off a layer of something he needed to, he can think a bit more clearly now. And Mingi is already done when Wooyoung steps out of the shower stall. He follows Wooyoung back to his room wordlessly, walking in after him.

“That’s San’s bed. I’m sure he won’t mind if you take it.”

Mingi nods. “Thanks, Wooyoung. I owe you one.”

“You don’t, really. It’s fine,” Wooyoung shakes his head, the awkwardness messing with his thoughts. He doesn’t feel like himself, really. Mingi makes him… so much less talkative, so much less easy going somehow, when it’s just the two of them. There’s always a pressure on Wooyoung’s mind, a struggle to think of what to do, what to say. And he hates it, how unsure of himself it makes him feel.

But it’s no time to think about it now. Now, he just turns the light off hearing Mingi on the opposite side of the room get into San’s bed. He can navigate his room in the dark, even while tipsy, the little bit he is, so he gets into his own and stares up at the ceiling, feeling still somehow out of his skin.

Silence. Dark and eerie.

“You’re really… not jealous?”

Wooyoung takes Mingi’s words, low and deep, in the dark, like a stab to the gut. He wanted Mingi to see him today. He wanted him to see him with that guy.

It was in his mind, somewhere, while he did it: was Mingi watching? Did he see him, did he see the guy’s hands on him, his tongue in his mouth, on his neck?

So Wooyoung wants to say no, maybe _I am, I love Yunho, haha…_ but tonight’s been sobering enough for Wooyoung to be able to make up more white, funny haha lies.

“San really likes him…”

“That’s not an answer,” Mingi interrupts.

“God, Mingi, you didn’t let me _finish._ But even if San didn’t, I really wouldn’t be. I don’t like Yunho like that, my god,” he snaps, voice low. _I could’ve had any dick I wanted, did you see?_ “We’re just playing around.”

Mingi doesn’t say anything for a moment.

“I’m glad. I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

And Wooyoung… Wooyoung isn’t hurt. He’s _exhausted._ He’s _tired._

“I’m fine.” Wooyoung’s eyelids close out of their own accord. He’s so tired…

“I know you are,” Mingi replies.

But he has no energy to respond—just lets himself doze off into slumber, fitful and restless.

One time, when they’re almost done with their midterms, San comes in late into the evening while Wooyoung’s at his desk, taking his make-up off from the day. He’s still wearing his fancy clothes, a shirt and a well-fitted pair of pants.

“Going somewhere fun?” San teases him as Wooyoung packs up to leave, picking up his phone, keys, his planner, and some other things. He doesn’t feel like changing since he has to do laundry tomorrow anyway, and he looks _good._ Why not dress up sometimes just for the sake of it?

“Don’t you know it,” Wooyoung smirks, but doesn’t deny San’s implication. Maybe it’s better for him to think that way.

Except it’s also San who finds Wooyoung in their favorite spot in the library, at the computers in the basement one hour later, at midnight. Shoes off, legs crossed in the chair, Wooyoung is sipping from a half-empty coffee next to him.

“Professor emailed me, said I submitted an assignment for the wrong week. If I redo it before tomorrow morning, he’ll give me full credit for it,” he tries to justify himself to San. It’s not entirely the full truth, he has an assignment due in the morning that he’s procrastinated for a week, but…

But San just sits down at the computer next to his, turning it on and pulling things out of his bag. “That sucks, ugh. I’m sorry.”

That’s why he and San are best friends; because they see behind each other’s bullshit, and yet never feel the need to make the other feel uncomfortable about it.

Just like Wooyoung didn’t point out that San hasn’t talked to Yunho in a week, since the party, San doesn’t call him out on his bluff either. Dignity intact, friendship strengthened.

Wooyoung is in an optional lecture for his microeconomics class when one message from Mingi appears in the notifications on his computer. He immediately quits it on his computer and puts the brightness all the way down, pulling out his phone under the chairs in front of him. Thankfully, this is an 8 PM optional lecture and he’s in the last row, so there are very few people around him.

It’s Tuesday—usually he’d go to see Mingi tonight, but this lecture will last until 9 so he isn’t really in the mood; he opens his message anyway.

_**‘What are u up to'** _

_‘In class,’_ he hastily texts Mingi back, fiddling with the phone in his hands.

_**‘You have class now?’** _

_‘Yeah, an review lecture’_

_**‘Hmm’**_ Mingi replies, and Wooyoung feels something thrum a little through him. _**‘Do you have to pay attention?’**_

He should. Wooyoung came to it for a reason, because he has an B in this so far, and he needs to increase that for midterms, in case he bombs his final. But the TA is doing the shittiest job at explaining a concept he already knows, so…

 _‘Not really’_ he replies, knee bouncing in the chair.

_**‘Can I distract you?’** _

Wooyoung’s fingers fly over the keyboard, but he waits a little more before sending it. _‘Yeah’_

_**‘Can I send you a pic?’** _

Oh. _Fuck._

Wooyoung’s lip gets bitten between his teeth in a struggle to keep calm. _‘Yeah’_

And he waits, two, three, five, ten seconds, before the photo comes on the screen and Wooyoung has to grip his phone tight not to drop it. In the darkly-lit photo, the outline of Mingi’s cock is visible through those godawful pink shorts he owns, terrible for Wooyoung’s sanity.

And then he doesn’t say anything, no _missing you,_ or _thinking of you_ , _wish you were here_ or any bullshit like that.

Wooyoung’s never done this—never really texted stuff like this to anyone, maybe except to a guy online he didn’t know when he was in high school, but… this is Mingi. He knows Mingi, he knows that hand, his cock; it’s been inside him so many times he lost count, he’s had Mingi’s eyes looking into his on so many instances.

And Mingi, the bastard, doesn’t say anything else for a bit, lets Wooyoung boil in his thoughts, unsure of what to reply, something gathering in his stomach.

And then the typing bubbles appear, and Wooyoung drops his fingers from the keyboard.

_**‘You don’t have to say anything’** _

_Fuck_ , Wooyoung does; he wants to drive Mingi crazy too.

_‘I… fuck I can’t believe I’m doing this in class’_

_**‘We don’t have to. Wooyoung, we really don’t’** _

But Wooyoung really does; sexting is like the ultimate way to turn someone on. Without even being there to touch them—Wooyoung loves the idea of that power trip, knowing that just his words have that much of an effect. Getting Mingi off while he’s in class? Whew.

_‘I wanna. Just… don’t know what you wanna hear’_

_**‘Fuck’** _And Wooyoung’s stomach does a little flip at the curse. **_‘Just whatever you’re thinking about’_**

What is Wooyoung thinking about? Ugh, pulling those shorts off of Mingi. Stroking over his dick, seeing how big it is in his hand, playing with it. He feels like playing, like teasing—if only he wasn’t in this stupid class.

 _‘Wanna get you off’_ he types, sending the message before he can even think twice; his fingers fly over the keyboard. _‘Straddle you and just put my hands on you’_

_**‘That sounds good’** _

_‘I wanna suck you off too’_ Wooyoung types, knowing that’s Mingi’s biggest weakness, maybe. That they rarely do it because Wooyoung is too impatient and he’ll hurt himself, and Mingi doesn’t want to hurt him. But this is a fantasy, right? _‘Put one hand on you and stroke you slowly. I’d try to take you down my throat’_

_**‘Fuck, Wooyoung’** _

_‘Is that good?’_

_**‘That’s so good’** _

Wooyoung’s stomach does another flip at the text, pride blooming under his skin. _‘Can you show me?’_

And he regrets the text right as soon as he sends it, maybe, because he already feels the stirring in his lower stomach, how he’s really getting turned on from this.

Except he really doesn’t, when another photo loads on his screen. Mingi’s big dick in his hand, hard, precome glinting in the angle of the photo from the low lamp to the side of Mingi’s bed, which he knows is there. His shirt is pulled up, back arched just the slightest, showing the long lines of his stomach, his small waist.

Wooyoung has to lock his phone and look up for a second, taking a deep breath in. And out. And in. And out. Economics—game theory, oligopoly, price-fixing, collusion, cartels—words fly in front of his eyes from the board in front of him.

He’s so… he’s so fucking… he’s _maddening,_ this is what he is, playing with Wooyoung like this. He unlocks his phone and the photo stares right back at him; he can taste Mingi on his tongue, _feel_ him, and he’s going _insane._

A thought flies through his brain—brief, but enough; he presses the camera button at the bottom of the texts and drops his phone lower, angling it from his thighs up to his lips. There’s the slightest outline of something in his crotch area; it’s probably his wallet, but does Mingi know?

And then in a moment of insanity, he sends it without thinking twice. _‘You’re really turning me on right now’_

 _ **‘Fuck, Wooyoung’** _The reply comes instantaneously. _**‘Is that the wall behind you?’**_

 _‘Yeah’_ He replies, holding back from biting his lip into his mouth. He’s probably so fucking obvious to anybody who might see him, but…

_**‘If I was there, I’d touch you’** _

**_‘Tease you a little, slip my hand into your sweatpants’_ **

**_‘Would you like it? For me to get you off in the middle of class?’_ **

Oh hell no. Oh, he’s _not_ doing this right now. Wooyoung crosses his legs, trying to calm down the twitch of his thigh, bouncing up and down, the… growing issue in his pants.

_‘Yes please god’_

He can see it; he can _feel it_ and that’s the worst, Mingi’s hand traveling up his thigh, over the outline of his cock, and slipping in. The subtle smirk on his face as he’d move his hand inside of Wooyoung’s pants, the dry, rough touch.

Public sex has always been a _thought_ for Wooyoung—one that raised his blood pressure and made his knees go weak just so. Knowing people can hear him, that they’re one look away at any second from seeing something they shouldn’t, Wooyoung’s pleasure laid open and bare. The excitement of something unplanned, spontaneous—that Mingi would want him this much that he couldn’t hold himself back, that he’d know Wooyoung wants it, and wants it right then, giving it to him—

_**‘You like to put on a show, don’t you? Are there people around you?’** _

Wooyoung’s eyes flit around the room—a guy who’s texting, across the aisle to the right, maybe 10 meters away from Wooyoung. Two girls two rows in front, some more people to the left and towards the front. A guy in the back row to the left, even further.

_‘Some’_

_‘I don’t think they see me’_

_**‘That’s good’**_ Mingi replies. _**‘Or maybe not. Do you want them to see you come all over yourself?’**_

_‘Mingi…’_

_**‘Too much?’** _

_‘No, just… want it’_ So desperately, _achingly_ so.

_**‘Oh fuck, Wooyoung’** _

**_‘I’m gonna come’_ **

**_‘Can I come?’_ **

How is he gonna—

_‘Yeah, you can’_

—just say something like this, like Wooyoung won’t see his stupid orgasm face behind his eyelids now.

Commotion next to him gets Wooyoung’s eyes to snap from his phone; everywhere, people are moving to leave. Wooyoung scrambles to put his laptop in its case and in his backpack, grabbing his coat and throwing the backpack over one shoulder.

No other message from Mingi is there while he leaves the building, anticipation fluttering heavy in his stomach. He just wants to get home, just wants to drop in his bed and get a hand on himself, expel all these fucking thoughts that Song Mingi is too good at putting in his head.

And then…

One new message; a picture.

Wooyoung refuses to open it, won’t. Absolutely fucking _won’t._

It’s dark outside, the slightest wind ruffling his hair. Cold, even over his coat—east coast falls are harsh.

The crosswalk light is red. Wooyoung shifts from one foot to the other, puts the other strap over his left shoulder. _Won’t._

He _won’t._

He—

His fingers lift the phone to his face; his thumb swipes up, opens right on the messages.

Absolutely _not._ He _didn’t._

Wooyoung shoves the phone right back in his pocket, blatantly ignores the swirling visuals in his head, the way his pants feel too tight. If he gets a damn hard-on on the street because of Song Mingi he’ll sue. He’ll _sue._ On autopilot, his legs carry him across the courtyard and across the next street, down the pavement. Left and right, one after another, Wooyoung is _not_ thinking about it.

Up the stairs to his dorm, through opening the door and turning on the lamp; thank _fuck_ San isn’t here because otherwise he might’ve gotten an eyeful of Wooyoung’s dick, and Wooyoung would’ve been entirely unapologetic about it.

Taking his outside clothes off, he throws them over the chair, barely bothers to put on a shirt before he gets into bed. And then, only then does he open his phone. Under the last photo, there’s one more message.

_**‘Look what you’ve done to me’** _

Blood pools straight to his dick. Wooyoung can’t even lie to himself that the sight of Mingi doesn’t _do_ something to him. The sight of Mingi’s last photo, taken from the abs up, come splattered up to his neck, over his chin, thick lip bitten between the white of his teeth. There’s a faded, red mark on his chest, above his nipple; Wooyoung _put it there_ last time, when he came and couldn’t hold back.

Wooyoung’s hand speeds up over himself, rough and dry despite the precome dripping down his cock. Realistically, he’s been turned on for so long that pretending to be patient is a game lost from the start—edging is not a thing when behind his closed eyes, his mind conjures images and feelings of him in class, in a restaurant, in a bus—Mingi’s hand on him, teasing, stroking, making him come.

 _Fuck._ He’s _so_ close, he’s so fucking close. Gosh, Mingi on his knees, lips and chin and cheeks splattered with come but this time it’s Wooyoung’s; just like in that stupid picture, lips bitten between his teeth, tongue darting out to taste…

Wooyoung comes all over his shirt and hand, dripping down his fingers. And it’s entirely disappointing, almost unsatisfactory—an empty orgasm that leaves him feeling more terrible than he did at the start, and still keeps those images behind his eyes.

Mayhaps, really, in person it’s easy to tell himself that Mingi is annoying, and clingy, and that Wooyoung doesn’t find anything about him, well, _great._

But it’s hard to remember that over text, Wooyoung understands now. Because Mingi’s an awfully good texter, and great at putting words, _images_ in his head.

He saves the photos; who can blame him? And then he throws his phone away and doesn’t even answer Mingi’s last text.

“Do you want to join?” Seonghwa asks Wooyoung with just a touch of annoyance. Wooyoung probably did not hear him the first time he asked.

“For what?” he pulls his nose out of his notebook, finishing the sketch he was working on.

“We’re going to the studios tonight. Jongho’s recording something for Mingi and Hongjoong’s class, and we were just gonna hang out since Hongjoong, Seonghwa, and I are going home for the long weekend tomorrow,” San asks Wooyoung, and he considers it for a second. He has this sketch homework to turn in in two days, and some other small assignments for his economics class, plus some readings. If he wants to not spend the entire weekend in, he’d better work on them.

But… well.

“Ugh, sure. I’ll join, but I’ll probably sketch some stuff during.”

And that’s how he finds himself at 9 PM on a Thursday evening watching Jongho continuously belt out the same exact high note seemingly a thousand times. It sounds _the same_. It’s _the. exact. same._ to Wooyoung’s ears, but Mingi and Hongjoong whisper amongst themselves while Jongho does the couple verses again and again, and all three of them look the slightest bit unhappy.

Wooyoung is admittedly shit at drawing, but with Jongho continuously belting out those notes, he sure as hell can’t focus. The sketches look ugly; he doesn’t even know where he was going with this stupid assignment, what choreography he was trying to figure out. It’s all nothing but a jumbled mess, and he’s getting _annoyed._

He drops his sketchbook at some point, getting San’s eyes on him. _Are you fine?_ they’re saying, but Wooyoung purses his lips. He needs some air.

There’s a cafe at the bottom of the music building which is open until late; Wooyoung picks up his phone and his wallet and heads there on autopilot, walking straight to the vending machines. He swipes his card, and one by one, he drops six coffees into the slot at the bottom, picking them up and holding them between his body and his arm. He picks up two packs of chips too, and a couple of cookies for Mingi and Hongjoong’s sweet tooths, and takes the stairs back up to the studio.

He focuses on the stairs passing by his feet, slows his pace; if he focuses on those, the thoughts in his head will go away. If he stops feeding his emotions with thoughts, they won’t take root, in that stupid meditation app’s words. Or they’re supposed to, at least. Gentle, feather touches to intrusive thoughts—Wooyoung feels more like bonking them on the head, but okay. That’s fine.

Walking back into the studio, he drops three of the coffees and the cookies next to Mingi and Hongjoong; pressing the button that will let Jongho in the booth hear them, Wooyoung gets close to the microphone and—

“Take a fucking break.”

The rest of the iced coffee cups, and the chips, go to San and Seonghwa, one for himself. He can’t eat that stuff, but at least the iced coffee doesn’t have too many calories.

“Thanks, Wooyoung. You’re an angel,” Hongjoong grumbles. Wooyoung smiles a small smile at him and drops back down into his spot. He’s not going to do any more work tonight, that’s for sure. San and Seonghwa are chatting next to him, engrossed in their conversation, so Wooyoung fits his eyes to Mingi, Hongjoong, and Jongho, and observes.

Their coffees are open, and they’re all sipping absentmindedly at them. Hongjoong points at something on the screen, letting the song play. Jongho’s overlaid voice sounds weird, but Wooyoung doesn’t know music. And then they stay silent for just a few seconds, maybe considering something. Jongho goes to point to something, then stops, tilting his head. Suddenly, Mingi moves; Wooyoung can’t see what he’s doing too well from where he is, but something gets dragged on the screen. Some things get added, some on-screen switches and what looks like buttons pressed, and the instruments and the voice together sound a bit different when played again, but just so. Is that reverb? Wooyoung has no idea, but Hongjoong and Jongho look a little bit happier, let out a surprised _woah_ as the song goes by.

Mingi abruptly stands up, throwing his arms to the sides with the most smug expression Wooyoung’s ever seen. Hongjoong huffs into laughter, hitting him until he sits back down, grinning at Hongjoong and Jongho. “I did it. I did it, right?”

“You did it,” Hongjoong acknowledges with a laugh and sends Jongho back in.

Jongho goes back into the booth, recording a longer version of what he’s just done before, and this time, Mingi and Hongjoong look more satisfied, pulling some things around, replaying it differently each time, and chatting between themselves. Jongho sips at his coffee while he waits for them to be done.

“Wanna do just the closing verse? I think we’re good,” Mingi presses the button and asks Jongho in the booth, who nods. He reaches into the cookie wrapper after, pulling out a bit of one and munching on it absentmindedly while Jongho sings in the booth.

He sounds fantastic. Jongho always sounds amazing, and Hongjoong and Mingi are just too good at making him sound good as well, maybe. Wooyoung has their Soundclouds on repeat most of the time while he studies, especially the tracks they’ve made together. He has some unreleased tracks on his phone as well, courtesy of both Mingi and Hongjoong.

He’s choreographed to some as well, but he hasn’t told them yet. He doesn’t know if he wants to.

There’s… well, there’s one of Mingi’s verses he’s danced to before, but the video is hidden somewhere in his gallery. He remembers that moment vividly from last semester, for a couple of reasons. For what he felt, for one; for the fact that since then, he doesn’t think there has been a moment (maybe except the performance of their dance crew) when he has felt so heated, so full of _feeling_ when dancing.

And two, because he declared dance as a second major the day after. Maybe that’s why he feels like that—Wooyoung’s learned that the moment he starts taking something seriously, it becomes way less fun.

“Wooyoung?” Seonghwa waves his hand in front of Wooyoung’s face, getting his attention.

“What?”

“We’re heading out. Are you coming?”

Wooyoung looks at the room; San, Seonghwa, and Jongho seem ready to leave, jackets on and backpacks slung around their shoulders. Mingi and Hongjoong are still in their chairs, chatting amongst themselves.

“Yeah. Let’s go.”

Necessary goodbyes in tow, Wooyoung follows them out of the door, breaking apart with San to head to their own dorm, Seonghwa and Jongho heading in the other direction.

After they take a few steps in silence, San elbows him. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I don’t know,” San shrugs. “You seemed a bit out of it recently.”

“It’s just a bad day,” Wooyoung is quick to justify. It really is—sometimes he has these days where he just doesn’t feel like himself, but so does everyone.

“Okay. But you can talk to me, you know that, right?” San pauses to turn and look at him straight in the eyes, starting to walk backwards when Wooyoung doesn’t stop. He knows San means it; he’s his best friend, and Wooyoung would tell him anything.

Well… except some things.

“Yeah. I know. Thank you, Sannie,” he reaches to ruffle San’s hair, laughing when San leans into it and then turns around to wrap a hand in Wooyoung’s, skipping away and pulling Wooyoung along to do it with him, hands swinging around.

Wooyoung finds a wide smile take over his face; he really loves San.

Wooyoung is starting to think the assignment isn’t the problem. Neither is the class, neither is the professor, neither is the curriculum, neither is anything. The problem is him. Him and his utter incapacity to have his brain put on paper the thoughts in his head, the most _basic_ of shapes.

Maybe it’s not even that. It’s the lack of _flow_ in his head, the empty spaces between moves, making the choreography, well, purely _shit._ Inexistent, obliterated. He wishes San was here to help him with it, stroke his hair and move his body with that annoying flexibility of his, so Wooyoung could attempt to sketch his body lines in the form of ridiculous stick figures.

But he isn’t. San is home.

Wooyoung stares at his phone once again. The message from Mingi from ten minutes ago hasn’t magically changed content nor sender.

_**‘Are you free tonight?’** _

Wooyoung considers the message, twiddling his phone in his hands. Maybe that will help settle his frantic mind, so he can come back and work on these stupid drawings.

_‘Sure’_

_‘Should I come over?’_

Usually, he’s the one to text Mingi on Fridays, but he guesses it’s late enough anyway for Mingi to check, Wooyoung can’t fault him. It’s 8:30, and Yunho is busy only until 10 on Fridays, so Wooyoung needs to leave before that.

_**‘Sure. Text me when you get here’** _

With a drawn-out sigh, Wooyoung grabs an oversized red hoodie that fits him just right without bothering to put anything underneath, and a tight pair of black jeans. Dress to impress—whoever it might be, Wooyoung won’t be caught dead going to someone’s place looking less than entirely edible. His hair gets some dry shampoo treatment as well, fluffed up into some sort of shape.

There’s a thrum in his blood, a constant whirring in his mind that doesn’t shut up all the way to Mingi’s place, even in the cool wind, up the elevator to the third floor. By this time, Wooyoung would usually have sex to look forward to, the promise of good dick obliterating most invasive thoughts.

But this time, even as Mingi opens the door, as he steps through the familiar kitchen-living room to get to his room, he doesn’t really feel it. Not even as he closes the door to the room and lets Mingi crowd him against it.

Mingi always kisses without the slightest inkling of hesitation. Like in everything he does, Mingi gives himself into this too, kisses to obliterate. Even when he makes it slow and dragged out, he knows just how to pull on Wooyoung’s bottom lip with his teeth, suck it in between his own lips, let go and look at Wooyoung with a lidded, heated look that turns Wooyoung into pure excitement.

Usually, Wooyoung would look up and catch his eyes on his and feel that heat thrum low in his stomach, let it send him forward until he’d kiss Mingi again, hands around his neck. Pushing, deepening the kiss, asking Mingi to lead and not giving him any ground to; borderline desperate, maybe, itching for Mingi to take out those emotions in him and fuck them away.

Except instead, Mingi pulls away.

“Are you okay?” he asks, forehead on Wooyoung’s. His hands rest on Wooyoung’s stomach, under his sweatshirt, big and hot and _there._

“Yeah. Just kiss me,” Wooyoung begs.

A pause. Mingi doesn’t have to say anything—Wooyoung hears it in his own voice. That was _strange._

“You know we don’t have to fuck, right? It’s fine,” Mingi says, low, understanding. It makes Wooyoung feel uncomfortably _seen._

If they’re not going to, why the hell did Wooyoung come?

“No, it’s fine. I came here to, let’s do it.”

And he presses up again, on his tiptoes to let Mingi kiss him; Mingi listens to the unspoken words and presses his hands on Wooyoung’s ribs.

Except it still feels off, somehow. Out of place. Wooyoung doesn’t know where to put his hands, where to go further and where not to. Out of his mind.

Maybe he should go home. Just call it a day and go to bed.

Except… he knows he won’t. Tiny and little—there’s a knot in his throat, weird and surprisingly invasive. It throws him off-balance; he doesn’t _wanna_ go back.

“Wooyoung…” Mingi pulls away, taking his hands off from under Wooyoung’s hoodie, putting them on his neck instead. “We can just chill. It’s fine.”

God, he hates this. He should go home. He really should.

“I’m sorry.”

But he doesn’t want to be alone right now.

“Don’t be. You have nothing to be sorry for,” Mingi smiles, scratching his head, and pulls away. His sweatpants are just the slightest bit tight in his crotch area.

Wooyoung feels useless. Mingi is there during Wooyoung’s beck and call, but Wooyoung can’t even...

“Have you smoked before?”

Wooyoung’s eyes shoot up to Mingi’s. “What?” And he knows Mingi doesn’t mean cigarettes. “Uh…” He has, at a couple of parties, took a pull from someone else’s joint because he wanted to try, but that’s how much experience he has. “I have, yeah. But only a couple of times before.”

“Do you want to?”

Honestly… Wooyoung has always wanted to really try. It’s the quintessential American college experience, right? And what place is safer than Mingi’s room, with him?

“Are you 100% sure?”

“Yeah,” he breathes out, exhales a sigh of relief.

Wooyoung unpeels himself from the door. Going to sit on Mingi’s bed, legs crossed under him, he leans back onto the wall and watches Mingi change his shirt into a sweater and crack open a window.

A cool draft enters the room, bites the exposed skin on Wooyoung’s hands. He tucks them into the arms of his sweater, putting them under his hoodie. His eyes trace Mingi—turning around the little desk, pulling out some stuff from drawers. A transparent bong, a grinder; the sight makes him chuckle.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Wooyoung laughs. He’s really glad he left home sometimes. He’s here, in the guy he’s fucking’s dorm room, smoking weed. All of which would’ve gotten him into a world of trouble back home.

But here… here, Mingi opens his phone and music filters through the small speaker on his desk. It’s city pop; Wooyoung _can’t believe_ Mingi is a city pop kind of guy.

But well, nothing really surprises Wooyoung anymore. Especially as he traces, fascinated, the minute movements of Mingi’s hands. He pours water from a bottle into the bong, packs something with the weed he ground. Gets a lighter, and finally, _finally_ joins Wooyoung on the bed. “I’ll teach you, okay?”

“Okay,” Wooyoung nods.

“Just put your mouth in that space, okay? I’ll light it up and it’s going to fill with smoke. Don’t inhale though, wait until I pull out the little weed thing there and tell you to. When you inhale, inhale really slowly, right? And then pull your mouth away, hold it in for like two seconds, not more. And then exhale.”

Wooyoung nods, putting his mouth right where Mingi tells him to. The glass seals around his lips; he hears the little flame of the lighter, and then feels the cold smoke on his lips gradually fill the tube. Through the corner of his eye, he watches Mingi pull out the bowl.

“Inhale now and take your mouth away. Slow.”

He does, taking the tube away and letting the cold smoke enter his mouth. He pulls it in, and already feels the cough traveling up his airway. Magically, he holds it in until he exhales the smoke, coughs slightly once, twice after he does.

“Ugh.”

“Are you okay?” Mingi immediately hands him a bottle of water; there’s a tight sensation in his airways, but it’s not entirely unpleasant. It goes away with the water, mostly. Like he just needed to cough it out.

“Yeah. I liked that. It felt smooth.” Coughing for one last time to get the rest of the sensation out, he watches Mingi put the bowl back in and put his own lips on the mouthpiece, right where Wooyoung’s had been.

His movements _scream_ experience, which stirs something in Wooyoung’s stomach. His fingers are deft on the bong, lighting it and breathing in much quicker, much more efficiently than Wooyoung had.

He’s not surprised; he knows from Yunho that he and Mingi… well, they’ve certainly done more stuff than other people would have. Definitely more than he and San, maybe even Hongjoong and Seonghwa, who are older than them, have. He doesn’t have many details, but…

Mingi breathes out the smoke with his eyes on Wooyoung’s.

Wooyoung’s hands twitch. “Can I try once more?”

“Do you feel it?” Mingi asks, eyes careful on his.

Wooyoung pauses for a second, trying to take in the feeling in his body. There’s maybe a… blanket over his thoughts, something warm, comfortable. He feels relaxed, sort of uncaring. He feels _great,_ even if barely any different, like he would feel in his best days.

“Maybe a little. Not too much though.”

With one second of hesitation, Mingi passes him the bong again. This time, Wooyoung takes it in his hands more confidently as Mingi runs through the whole spiel again. And this time, Wooyoung inhales slower, and manages to not give into the urge to cough, taking a few deep breaths. “This is fun.”

“Is it?”

“Yeah. I don’t think it’s really something I’d do on the regular, this whole thing, but… I’ve always wanted to try it properly. But never… I guess, I don’t know.”

Well, he definitely feels it the slightest bit now. A heady sensation, some sort of fuzzy, barely-there cloud. He expected to feel sleepy, but he doesn’t; he feels awake.

“Never what?” Mingi asks, holding the thing to his mouth with his eyes on Wooyoung.

“Never really wanted it enough to really try somewhere where it didn’t feel safe. Like a party, or something. Or I have, but not really, and more because of peer pressure. Wasn’t really fun.” His voice drops; low, private. Mingi exhales the smoke and looks right at him.

“It’s never really fun if you don’t feel safe, yeah. You have a lot of self-control.”

“Do I?” Wooyoung chuckles. What a thought; he and self-control?

“Mhm. Most people don’t recognize peer pressure.”

Hmm, Wooyoung thinks. Maybe? “When did you start?”

“Start? Uhh… probably like the beginning of high school?”

 _No._ “Really? In Korea?” Wooyoung turns to him, shocked.

“Yeah,” Mingi laughs. “You’re so surprised. Yes, Yunho and I… ran into some circles in high school. Rebelled a lot.”

Wooyoung lays back onto the wall, mouth agape; maybe it’s the atmosphere and the relaxation from the weed, but he doubts it. It’s somehow hard for him to see it; Mingi maybe, but Yunho…? No, not even Mingi. They’re just so… sweet, puppy-like. He could see it in college because everyone here is like this, but back at home?

He shudders.

“What did you do?” he asks, curiosity making room into their conversation. Mingi… there’s something interesting about him right now, different from the loud, annoying Mingi he sees with his friends. Something calm, something differently introspective… that suits Mingi a lot. He likes this loss of a façade.

“Uhh… nothing too extreme, don’t imagine. But just… smoking, alcohol, some drugs. We sometimes got into fights with other groups because of some petty shit, but nothing too extreme. Definitely got my ass kicked a couple of times, tried to kick some at other times. Was the reason for the fights sometimes,” Mingi shrugs. Wooyoung stares at him, unabashedly surprised.

“Wait, really? Like why? Tell me more.” This reads a little bit like a drama; rich sons rebelling against their strict families. What a way to live.

“Well, the biggest fight in our high school was because of me. The girlfriend of the head of one of the other groups… well, I don’t know if she liked me or she wanted to start stuff and I was easy prey, but. I didn’t have too tough of a reputation. She tried to hook up with me at a club, I couldn’t really push her away… and got into trouble right after.” Wooyoung doesn’t know how to interpret the tilt to his mouth. Maybe it’s really something of the past for him? Is it? “I kind of needed everyone to intervene, and I almost broke my nose then. Yunho put someone in the hospital for three days for trying to take a knife to me.”

Wooyoung’s jaw really drops this time. _That_ is some shit.

“You’re for real? That’s insane!”

“I know. It wasn’t really fun, but… huh, I guess.”

“I just… I’m sorry, but I just _can’t see_ you and Yunho doing that.”

“True, I’m not too good at fighting, but Yunho could beat anyone’s ass. He just doesn’t like to.”

Wooyoung blinks, mind blown. Yunho and Mingi… whew. “Wow. I just… I thought this kind of stuff only happened in dramas.”

“Nah, definitely not. Our parents wanted us to be in public school to build character or something, but after this, closed the case and moved both of us to a private school. Rich kids left unhinged are the worst. It doesn’t really happen there though, so that was kind of it.”

And Wooyoung… well, he wants to ask _so_ many questions. Like _why did you turn up like this then_ , so… like _this?_ So many things, the mention of a girl, how did their parents not know? Or did they? How did they get away with it? How things felt, and stuff. But he looks at Mingi, and just… well, now that he’s doing this, he can’t really figure out what to say. Doesn’t want to ask too much. If Mingi stopped the conversation…

“I have a question,” Wooyoung chances his words.

“Hmm. What is it?”

“Why aren’t you studying music? You and Hongjoong, in that studio… you’re so good at it. As good as Hongjoong.”

Mingi’s lips turn down in the slightest, the silence deafening. It doesn’t seem like Wooyoung hit a good spot.

“I don’t really have a choice. I love what I do.”

Wooyoung… Wooyoung doesn’t even _know_ what it is Mingi’s studying. He’s only ever seen Mingi surrounded by music, by equipment, rapping in stages, in his Soundcloud. He just knows from Hongjoong he isn’t majoring or minoring in music.

But it doesn’t feel appropriate to ask now. He lets it go.

“Can we try once more?” he points to the bong in Mingi’s hand; one arched eyebrow meets him in return.

“Are you sure?”

“Mhm.” He doesn’t feel much different. Maybe a tad bit more relaxed, but that’s it.

And again, he watches as Mingi expertly packs the thing, quick movements of his hands. Wooyoung’s always had the slightest thing for Mingi’s hands; for hands in general, maybe, but Mingi’s confidence is always most obvious in things he does. In holding mics, moving stuff on switchboards… playing Wooyoung’s body.

“Uh… can we try something?” he asks Mingi when he gets back to the bed, pointedly looking at him and the packed bong.

“Let me guess. You want to try to shotgun,” Mingi quips, lips turning up.

“I don’t know if that’s what it’s called! It’s when, like, one person—”

“That’s what it’s called,” Mingi laughs. Wooyoung gets the sense Mingi’s laughing at him. Naturally, he wants to curse at him, which is what he’d usually do, but Mingi fixes his eyes on him and raises an eyebrow.

And Wooyoung loses the curse on the tip of his tongue; it disappears into thin air. “Come here, then,” Mingi pats the space between his legs.

Well, _fuck him._ Wooyoung crawls over to sit on his thighs and hits Mingi’s chest with a closed fist; Mingi lets out a genuine sound of pain and fiddles with Wooyoung’s hoodie, pulling it back down where it rode up his stomach. Wooyoung looks down at him and… is it dumb, that he’s seeing Mingi in a new light now?

“What?”

“Nothing, just… come on. I wanna try.” Impatient; Wooyoung knows. He’s been told.

Maybe it really is dumb, but… seeing Mingi pull from the bong, the smoke heavier than it was before, eyes lidded towards it…

He’s _hot_. Mingi is _hot_ , and Wooyoung was never fooled by any pretense or anything that Mingi wanted to put forward. Maybe it’s hard for others to see him like this considering the dumb attitude and the image he puts forward, but the bad boy thing, the whatever is behind, brimming in Mingi’s mind, part of his past… Wooyoung can see traces of it often.

It’s easy for him because he gets to see Mingi like this often, pretty much _only_ like this, hands on Wooyoung’s body, throwing him around like he so likes to do. It’s easy to admit that’s why he comes to Mingi.

Because Mingi would never judge him for the shit he wants, and he is always serious and considerate with it all.

And then Mingi’s eyes lift, smoke held in his lungs; Wooyoung’s hands fist in his sweater and he bends down, biting his lip in his mouth. _Fuck._

Really, _fuck._ Mingi exhales the smoke one centimeter from Wooyoung’s lips; Wooyoung opens his mouth and tries to inhale it all in, feeling the familiar way in which heat gathers in his stomach. Not the smoke, but…

Maybe this was a bad idea because now he just wants to kiss Mingi _stupid_ , feel lips on his steal the air in his lungs. He could, if he just leans in a little—one centimeter, just a little bit...

Mingi puts the little bowl of weed back again and puts one hand on Wooyoung’s hip instead. His eyes bear into Wooyoung’s, the silence maddening; Wooyoung’s stomach twists.

“One more,” he breathes in the space between their lips.

“Wooyoung… I don’t want it to be too much.”

“Just one. I wanna try, okay?”

One required second of thinking for Mingi and he obeys, turning the bong towards him. “Fine. There’s probably one more hit there.”

Like before, Wooyoung puts his lips on it and waits until Mingi pulls out the little bowl to breathe it in, holding it until Mingi takes it away from him.

Like Mingi, he leans in, their lips _so fucking close_ , the material of Mingi’s sweatshirt held tight in one hand. With his other hand, he holds the back of Mingi’s neck as he exhales the smoke into his mouth, eyes closed.

And then he opens them. And finds Mingi looking at him—as silent and intense as before.

Wooyoung smashes their lips together. Swallows Mingi’s little surprised noise—smoke filters from Mingi’s mouth into his, trickling out when he pulls away. For the littlest bit—he angles his head to the left, dives right back to kiss Mingi breathless, eager, heated, tongue in his mouth, Mingi’s hand tightly holding on to his hip.

“Wooyoung…” Mingi pulls away for just a second, exhaling the rest of the smoke to the right of his face. “Woo, just let me put this away.”

 _Fine._ Wooyoung untangles himself from Mingi, pulling away from his lips and letting Mingi step out from the cage of his legs.

Mingi is a sight when he heads to his desk to put the weed and the bong away. Wooyoung trails his eyes after the discrete movements of his hands, letting his thoughts wander to the things he wants Mingi to do to him, burning low in his gut. Maybe the weed didn’t hit as hard, or maybe Wooyoung’s just weird. Because he feels less relaxed and more on edge, bursting out of his skin. _Eager._

When Mingi turns around to come back to the bed though, Wooyoung turns so he’s sitting, pulling at Mingi’s sweater and leaning back until Mingi’s straddling him, caging him in. Elbows pressed to both sides of Wooyoung’s head on the pillow, Wooyoung bites his lip and looks up at his Mingi, begging to be touched. For _something._

But Mingi doesn’t, expecting, eyes boring into Wooyoung’s. Wooyoung throws his hands on his neck and tilts up to kiss him, that same urgency in his lips, in his touches. Maybe; Mingi takes his lips away after a second to kiss down Wooyoung’s jaw. “Wooyoung-ah… I don’t think we should.”

And maybe… okay, maybe he’s right. Wooyoung never had any issue with doing stuff while slightly tipsy, and he knows Mingi doesn’t either, as long as they’re both barely so. But this… this is new for him.

Maybe one day.

“Yeah,” Wooyoung nods, jostling Mingi’s head in the crook of his neck. “Can we kiss though? Is that fine?”

“Yeah,” Mingi exhales, settling over his thighs. “That’s more than fine with me.” And he hums a low noise in the space under his jaw, tracing his tongue down Wooyoung’s pulse point and to his collarbone.

Wooyoung loses some of the urgency under Mingi’s slower touches—under the way Mingi seems content to simply explore the planes of his neck, dipping his lips under the neck of his hoodie. He’s so gentle, so soft, barely brushing Wooyoung’s heated skin with his lips.

And the feeling in Wooyoung—it’s so different from the usual burning physical _need_ he feels whenever he seeks Mingi out. Now it’s a knot in his chest, in his stomach, the need to grip onto something, hold something _tight—_ Mingi’s hair, Wooyoung wraps his hands in it and feels the way he shifts across his neck, sucking the skin under his Adam’s apple between his lips. Maybe it’s the weed that makes Wooyoung shiver as Mingi places small kisses up the middle of his neck, tilting his chin up to kiss along it; and back down to the other side.

But it’s not; he’s not that dumb. It’s the slow but intense feeling that Mingi’s lips raise in their wake, kissing every little centimeter of Wooyoung’s neck; he sucks on patches of skin, not hard enough to leave marks maybe, but enough for the feeling to travel through Wooyoung’s body. Over his collarbone, Mingi’s tongue dips in the space it makes when Wooyoung tenses up with a shudder—it _tingles._ He drags his teeth slowly over it, pulling Wooyoung’s hoodie to the side to kiss over the curve of his shoulder. The material tugs at his neck, bouncing back when Mingi lets go, dragging a path up over the side of his neck to the curve of his ear.

Slowly, Mingi tugs on his earlobe with his teeth, jostling the earrings there; they clink under Mingi’s lips with the slow kisses. With one hand, he tucks long strands of hair behind his ear and Wooyoung feels the heat of his breath, hears the exhale alongside the shell of his ear when he does.

When Mingi’s had enough of exploring, his lips press on Wooyoung’s again, slotting nicely between his own. Wooyoung enjoys the simple slide of their lips against each other’s, not in any rush to move it along. And then, when his lips open and Mingi’s tongue slides inside his mouth, he lets him explore again—drag it over his own, flicks behind his teeth. It’s kind of wet, maybe filthy, really; the noises register somewhere in the back of Wooyoung’s mind, but he’s too busy enjoying the heat of Mingi’s mouth to bother.

When Mingi pulls away, after what feels like an eternity, resting his forehead against Wooyoung’s, heavy breaths on his lips, Wooyoung feels the hardness pressing on his hip; he feels how his own pants are a tad too tight, constricting.

But he doesn’t necessarily feel like doing anything about it. It feels refreshing, freeing.

“Are you good?” he asks Mingi, hearing his heavy breaths above him.

“Mhm. My back kinda hurts though.” And Wooyoung realizes then that Mingi’s sort of uncomfortable just hanging over him like that, like Woooyung pulled him in. So he pulls at his sweater, switching their positions until they’re on their sides, facing each other.

“Better?” he asks, letting out a small moan when Mingi nods and immediately pulls him into another kiss, sneaking one arm under his head. The other hand suddenly hikes Wooyoung’s leg up, one thigh over Mingi’s knees as they kiss, _slow_ , soft. And Wooyoung moans, low and long, letting the repeated movement of Mingi’s hand moving up over his hip, his lower back, over his waist, under the material of the hoodie to press on his naked hip pull him in even further into his lips.

He likes kissing Mingi; it would be dumb not to admit, when Mingi lets him do whatever he wants, explore the planes of his mouth for what feels like hours, slow, soft. He can be too excited sometimes, too into it, too wet, shoving his tongue down Wooyoung’s throat without any finesse. But now?

Mingi sucks on his tongue, open-mouthed, bites at his lips. He’s _unfairly_ good at this.

_Yum._

“Mingi…” he squeaks, honest-to-god _squeaks_ , what the _hell was that,_ when Mingi moves down again to bite at his Adam’s apple. He should go home. He should probably go home.

“Hmm?”

“I…” he can’t finish his sentence. He doesn’t even know what he wanted to say.

Mingi pulls at his hoodie again, teasing his teeth over the skin under his collarbone; the sharp feeling makes Wooyoung shudder with want, surges that kind of pleasure he only gets with the slight, sharp onset of pain through his body. Mingi bites just a little, and then a little more, sharp little nips on Wooyoung’s skin. Soothing them with his tongue, he sucks the skin between his lips; Wooyoung hopes it won’t leave a mark. Mingi knows not to leave marks where they can be seen… _he should_ , because Wooyoung would have his _head_ otherwise.

But the feeling makes him shiver in Mingi’s hold anyway, under the hand sprawled on the skin of his lower back keeping Wooyoung close to him.

“Mingi… I need to go.”

“Do you?” he hums, pulling away from Wooyoung’s neck.

“Yeah, I… I have homework I need to turn in tomorrow.”

“Okay,” he says. And pauses. Is he not going to get up? “Okay, let’s go,” and he takes his hand off of Wooyoung’s back, pulling his hoodie back down, with one last slide of his hand over the back of his thigh, up and down. Large, wide motions that make Wooyoung _shudder._

And then he gets up, stands and gives one hand to Wooyoung, helping him stand up as well. The room tilts off its axis for a second, mentally. Emotionally.

Wooyoung realizes that right now, he wants nothing more than to be in that bed with Mingi again, making out with him, letting Mingi touch him everywhere he fucking wants.

And that’s a scary thought.

“Can I walk you back?” Mingi asks, Wooyoung pulling the hoodie over his hands. The breeze in the room is chilly now that he doesn’t have someone else's warmth to steal.

“You don’t have to.”

“I know, but I was gonna go for a walk anyway.” And he pulls the purple jacket from the back of his desk chair; he pauses, just for a second, and then hands it to Wooyoung.

“You don’t…”

“Take it. It’s cold, and your dorm’s far.”

Wooyoung regrets it right as he puts it on. It’s huge on Mingi, oversized, that’s what it’s supposed to be, but it’s _massive_ on Wooyoung, falling to his thighs, over his arms. Wooyoung feels _so stupid._ It shouldn’t mean shit, he has borrowed so many of Yunho’s clothes they have a special place in his closet now, but this is Mingi’s favorite jacket, and it _smells like him._

It’s comfortable. Mingi pulls on another jacket over his hoodie, takes his phone, and leads Wooyoung out of his room with a hand on the small of his back, taking it away when they reach the hallway. Wooyoung looks at his phone. It’s almost midnight. He’s been here for like three hours.

Yunho doesn’t leave his room, thankfully. Wooyoung always brings his shoes into Mingi’s room, so at least he had nothing to see.

The door closes behind them, heavy and loud. Wooyoung makes for the steps of the building, feeling Mingi’s presence behind him.

They fall in step on the way back to campus, to Wooyoung’s dorm, in silence; a comforting one. Streetlights illuminate the way just partially; Wooyoung makes to go through the park, the slightly longer, but nicer way back.

“I had fun tonight,” he admits, low, when it’s almost completely dark around them in the park, moonlight the only thing guiding their path.

“I’m glad you did. I… won’t lie, I was kind of worried that I pressured you into doing it.”

“You really didn’t. I’ve always wanted to try. It just feels like one of those college experiences, you know? I’d rather… I knew than not. So I don’t think it’s that big of a deal, and it’s fun,” he shrugs, the material of Mingi’s jacket shuffling under his hands, making a small noise. “Thank you. It was the best distraction.”

Mingi hums a low noise under his breath. He pauses for just a second, auspicious in the darkness. “You know, whatever you want to do… you can come to me, right? I’d be down to try anything with you.”

Wooyoung’s eyes turn to Mingi in the moonlight, catching the angles on his face as he’s looking to the front, and then turning to look at Wooyoung. He knows. He trusts Mingi.

“Yeah, I know. Thanks.”

He wouldn’t have been hooking up with Mingi for months otherwise.

They walk in silence for the rest of the way, reaching the back entrance to Wooyoung’s dorm, hidden by the trees. Mingi steps in front of him, Wooyoung’s back towards the entrance, and Wooyoung takes his hands out of his pockets, makes to take the jacket off.

“Don’t worry,” Mingi stops him with a hand to his wrist, thumbing at the collar of the jacket and dropping his hand. “Give it back to me later.”

Wooyoung’s mouth opens, stunned. He… doesn’t push, drops his hands back down, feeling the sleeves of the purple jacket fall around his hands.

It feels slightly… Mingi looks down at him, and Wooyoung looks up, not really knowing what to do. Like there’s something left, maybe. It’s completely silent around them, no one in sight. Unexpected for a Friday evening.

Wooyoung puts his jacket-covered hands on the sides of Mingi’s neck and leans up to press his lips to his, Mingi’s hands attaching themselves to his waist. Wooyoung slides his lips over his, nothing like before, nothing… heated.

When he pulls away, their lips make a small noise.

“Bye, Mingi,” Wooyoung turns around and swipes the ID to the door, opening it and not looking back.

At his desk, Mingi’s jacket still wrapped around him, Wooyoung pulls out the sketchbook and just _draws_. It might be terrible and it might not—does it matter? They’re stick figures. Song playing in his ears, the choreography flows through his head and down on paper, changing formations all around. He drops his head back when he’s done, throws the sketchbook and pencil on the desk, and thumbs at the edge of Mingi’s jacket, breathing into the chilly room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this! And I’ll see you next Sunday! <3


	2. fuck me like you hate me (kiss me like you miss me)

“Did you have fun?”

“Hmm?”

“This weekend,” San raises an eyebrow from where Wooyoung is on his bed researching something, laptop placed on his bent knees. “Also, that can’t be comfortable.”

“It is,” Wooyoung throws back. “I did.”

“Did you do anything but homework?”

“Mhm,” Wooyoung nods absentmindedly.

“What?”

Wooyoung stops his typing. Whoops.

“I hung out with Mingi,” Wooyoung admits, knowing that the best place to hide is in plain sight. Mingi’s trademark purple jacket is draped on the back of his chair because he didn’t have when to give it back to him.

“Mingi? You and Mingi?” San crouches next to his bed, elbows pressing on Wooyoung’s thigh. “I thought you didn’t like him?”

“Why did you think that?” Wooyoung turns his eyes to him, an eyebrow raised. Damn, he must’ve really pushed the facade then, if even San thought this.

“I don’t know, you don’t seem to be close, and you’re close to everyone in our group of friends. You act differently with him.”

“Do I?”

“Mhm, like… you don’t talk to him that much directly, and stuff. I don’t recall you two ever hanging out together.”

Wooyoung almost breaks into laughter because _wow_. He hangs out with Mingi “one-on-one” more than he hangs out with anyone else in this damn place. Except San.

“I do.”

“You never told me about it. Well, I guess you must be comfortable since he lent you his favorite jacket,” San shrugs and gets up.

“I guess so,” Wooyoung casually turns his eyes to his computer and ignores the flutters of terror in his chest at being found out, beating at the same time as his keyboard.

What a dumb thing that has so much power over him.

_**‘I think I liked it better when Yunho and San were clueless’** _

_‘Are they loud?’_

**_‘They’re so fucking loud’_ **

_‘I don’t think San has the capability to be quiet, so… sorry, man’_

And well, it’s Thursday. Wooyoung was going to go to Mingi’s anyway later today, and it doesn’t look like way more studying is getting done tonight, so might as well. San isn’t going to be home too soon, by the looks of it.

_‘Come over’_

_**‘Wait… really?’** _

_‘Yeah, just come. I’m just finishing up hw’_

Wooyoung is really just finishing up the last of it, crossing the i’s and dotting the t’s, or something there, well, before three soft knocks ring on his door. Wooyoung looks at the clock; it’s 7:56, it’s been _two minutes._

“Mingi?” he calls out.

“Yeah,” Mingi’s voice calls back.

 _Fuck._ Wooyoung looks down at himself—there’s a 15-minute walk _at least_ from Mingi’s apartment to their dorm. Mingi must’ve been just wandering around somewhere, and the thing is now that Wooyoung is _not ready._ By far. He was going to dress up, at least change out of the clothes he’s been wearing since classes ended at noon.

Well, fuck it. Wooyoung closes his laptop and heads to the door, twisting the handle while accepting that for some reason, he feels _nervous._

“Hi. Thanks for letting me come over,” Mingi’s face appears in the door.

“What were you up to?”

“I was having a coffee at the coffee shop next door,” he waves his half-finished iced coffee, ice ringing in the cup. It’s October; how weird. Plus, that coffee shop has the worst coffee in the history of coffee—Mingi can’t _not_ know.

“I pity you,” Wooyoung huffs, pushing his chair in with his hip. Mingi puts down the coffee on his desk, and all of a sudden, there is a finger on Wooyoung’s chin tilting his head up.

“You look so hot,” Mingi whispers to him. Wooyoung raises an eyebrow and refuses to close the gap.

"Is this a… you think I look _hot_?”

“Yes? Why wouldn’t I?”

Wooyoung looks down at himself, Mingi letting go of his chin, at one of the many KSA logo shirts he owns stained with pasta sauce and the grey sweatpants that have seen much better days; there’s not an ounce of makeup on his face, his hair is mussed up in a thousand directions from him pulling at it, and he has eyebags so big they should be called eyesuitcases by this point in the semester.

“I think you look amazing.” To add insult to injury (because this must be Mingi taking the piss at his expense), Mingi attaches his big ass hands to Wooyoung’s hips and looks down at him with the most obnoxious lip bite known to man.

“Can I kiss you?”

“Uh…” Wooyoung blinks dumbly.

“It’s alright if not.”

And he takes his hands away from Wooyoung, diffusing the tension, but there’s still that glint in his eyes when he’s looking at Wooyoung.

 _Attraction,_ Wooyoung’s mind helpfully supplies.

And Wooyoung realizes Mingi wasn’t joking. He _actually_ thinks Wooyoung is hot. Like this.

_Ah, for fuck’s sake._

Pulling Mingi by the lapels of his coat, Wooyoung makes him drop it on his chair and pushes him down to sit on his bed, kneeling between his legs on the floor.

“Wooyoung…”

“Don’t say anything,” Wooyoung warns, pulling down his sweatpants and grinding a hand on the bulge in Mingi’s underwear. “Hold my hair.”

Mingi does. Makes a bigger mess of what it already is, fingers soothingly rubbing across Wooyoung’s scalp as Wooyoung looks up at him—mouthing at his clothed cock, pulling his pants down just the slightest, eager, fired up. Mingi sighs, tightens them when Wooyoung sucks the tip in his mouth, and moves down at the same time he pulls Mingi’s boxers down.

When he lifts his hips off the bed at Wooyoung’s prompting, to really pull them off of him, Wooyoung doesn’t anticipate that Mingi’s going to go deeper—but he does, choking Wooyoung when he pushes into his throat.

“Fuck, are you okay?” Mingi asks, holding the side of Wooyoung’s face as Wooyoung gets his breath back, resting his head on his knee. The coughs stop eventually, and Wooyoung takes in a deep breath. And then another.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m good.”

“I thought you’d pull off, I’m sorry.”

Wooyoung doesn’t answer him, just wraps a hand around the base of his cock and tries to take in more than the tip and two more centimeters. Which he so clearly fails because Mingi is _so big,_ and so thick his mouth can’t take it.

Fuck, how does San do this?

Wooyoung almost chuckles at the thought of calling San right now to ask him advice on sucking dick—how funny would that be? Maybe he does chuckle a bit, turning surprised eyes to Mingi when he trembles and _moans._

“Is that good?” Wooyoung pulls off and jerks Mingi off with the hand on him, lubed up by his spit, feeling him grow hard in his hand.

“Yeah, that felt good. Go slower though, don’t hurt yourself, ” Mingi pushes a comforting hand into his hair again, waiting for Wooyoung to go back down.

This time, instead of trying to bob his head, Wooyoung fits his lips over his teeth and goes _slow._ Maybe there’s some merit to this, because he’s able to take a bit more of Mingi while his mouth adjusts to the obvious thickness in his mouth. Not much more though, because Wooyoung doesn’t have much practice at this, and because his mouth is _tiny._

Not something anyone would say in any other context. But now, as he pushes further and feels the tingling at the back of his throat that says well, frankly, _stop_ , he’s forced to acknowledge his limits.

“What else can I do?” he asks, pulling off and panting. He hasn’t done this to Mingi a lot at all, except a couple times when he was tipsy and then a handful more which were more foreplay, which is to say he hasn’t done this a lot at all period.

“What?” Mingi asks, taken by surprise.

“What else can I do? To make this good for you.”

“Uh?” Mingi blanks, big eyes suddenly staring at Wooyoung. “Like… sucking me off?”

“Yes, Mingi. What other things can I do with your dick?”

“Uhm… Uh,” Mingi falters, and Wooyoung is just about to give up and hop on his dick. “You can… use your tongue?”

“Like how?”

“Like… uh, just… the same way you’d lick a lollipop? Sort of? Make it… you know.”

Well… okay, Wooyoung thinks that one was a pretty obvious one too; he knows that part. Starting with the head, he drags the tip of his tongue down Mingi’s cock until where it meets his hand, flattening it on the way up and sucking at the head when he gets there.

“Fuck,” Mingi’s curse takes Wooyoung out of it for just a bit, except it makes him grin and go down on Mingi lower, bobbing his head up and down for that little bit. “You’re… you’re doing really well.”

 _Mhm_ , Wooyoung moans around Mingi’s cock, trying to push just a little more, just a little further—ignoring that little feeling for a second longer than he maybe should, and another one, and another one, before he pulls off.

“Woo,” Mingi says the first part of his name like he would in English; his head is thrown back when Wooyoung looks up. And Wooyoung moves back down, just dragging his lips over him, mouthing at the base when he gets there. That much he knows too, and Mingi looks like he’s tensed up, fully hard now.

Okay, Wooyoung can maybe push a little more. He wants to, takes Mingi’s cock back in his mouth and goes down as much as he can, and then a bit more—just like he stretches for dancing, pushing to the edge and just the _littlest bit_ past what’s comfortable and leaning into that feeling, knowing that’s how he gets better.

And then he chokes—expected, but he doesn’t pull off, which feels strange, and has Mingi’s hand tightening in his hair and his eyes frantically looking down.

“Wooyoung, are you okay?”

Wooyoung nods, pulling back just a little bit and going back to what he knows, sucking his cheeks and moving his head. Just occasionally he goes back down, and tries to take more, and focuses on that and only that.

Well, this turned less _hot_ and more like an exploration at some point, except for the fact that Mingi’s clearly breathing hard, moaning when Wooyoung goes down on him, and Wooyoung feels the bloom of satisfaction in his chest.

He pulls off at some point, looking up at Mingi and standing up on his knees.

“Come up here?” Mingi reads him right away, and Wooyoung does, Mingi taking him with him as he lays down and has Wooyoung straddle him.

“I didn’t prep today,” Wooyoung says, honest, voice rough, because he didn’t.

“That’s fine with me,” Mingi fixes Wooyoung in his lap, looking up at him with some sort of concern, pulling him up so Wooyoung’s crotch aligns with his. “We don’t have to fuck.” Wooyoung’s clothed cock presses on Mingi’s naked one, and when Wooyoung grinds down, they both moan at the same time, Mingi’s hands on his hips guiding him back and forth.

Wooyoung helps him by pulling off his own sweatpants and underwear to his thighs as well, both naked. Mingi quickly spits in his palm and takes the both of them in his hand, the feeling immediately making Wooyoung topple forward.

“Good?” Mingi asks, his grip just a bit too tight, too rough; Wooyoung hangs above his chest, hands holding him up, his necklace falling on Mingi’s shirt, and nods.

“Yeah, yeah… keep going.”

Mingi doesn’t kiss him. Mingi just stares up at him and Wooyoung stares right back down as he tugs at the both of them. Wooyoung wants to bend down and kiss him—it’s what he should do, what feels natural, some sort of tug to Mingi’s thick, full lips that Wooyoung resists, choosing to stare instead at the way Mingi’s lids drop just the slightest, focusing on where it feels _good._

Wooyoung looks down too, and sees the difference in their sizes—and for the life of him, can’t tell why he kind of shivers when he does, when he sees his cock drip a bead of precome on Mingi’s slightly bigger one… it feels weird, seeing them together like this. Weird good. Very good.

Well, not _too_ weird—because Wooyoung knows two things he’s into when it comes to Mingi—his big cock, and how he’s so much bigger than Wooyoung in general, and can manhandle him however he wants. So it makes sense, all in all, that he doesn’t need much more than a couple more tugs before he comes all over Mingi’s cock, and over the trimmed hair at the base of it, and his shirt. Mingi doesn’t let go of him though, not even as Wooyoung rides the intense orgasm, as he uses Wooyoung’s come as lube to slick them up even further.

“Mingi, fuck,” Wooyoung drops to his elbows, flicks of pain traveling through him. It’s more _too much_ rather than it is painful, but it is _good_ , and the feeling when Mingi comes all over him too…

Mingi leans up to kiss him, and Wooyoung gives in, letting Mingi pull him in by a hand on his lower back. Wooyoung arches up into him, accidentally sliding himself on Mingi, and groans as he does, a low rumble that he feels in his throat.

“Okay… I think I’m—” he pushes up, straddling Mingi’s thighs and looking for the wet tissues in his drawer. When he finds them, he gives one to Mingi who cleans himself up, and he does the same, pulling his underwear and his sweatpants back up. “Do you wanna text Yunho?”

“Why?” Mingi throws the tissue in the trash under Wooyoung’s bed; how did he see it?

“To see if they’re done.”

“... oh,” Mingi’s voice immediately drops in realization, trying to look for his phone. It’s on Wooyoung’s nightstand; when did that end up there?

Yunho doesn’t answer. Not for five minutes, not for ten (okay, maybe he’s exaggerating), and Wooyoung’s done too much pattering around his room for it to seem purposeful anymore.

“Can we just… cuddle?”

Wooyoung turns around to look at Mingi, still laying on his bed. He’s never…

Wooyoung’s never cuddled with anyone _like that_. Of course, San sometimes cuddles up to him when he needs some affection, and he’s cuddled into Yunho enough while ranting to him about life, but…

Not with anyone he’s ever slept with.

To be entirely true to himself, he’s not sure he likes the implications of it; Mingi looks cozy and big and fluffy, and Wooyoung remembers the feeling of Mingi kissing him, his thigh thrown over his and Mingi’s hand resting on his leg. It felt kind of good. And Wooyoung knows it’s entirely not right, probably, but…

Sneaking next to Mingi on his bed, he rolls his eyes, hoping Mingi’s seen it. He’ll freak out tomorrow about Mingi with outside clothes on his bed, but for now…

“Happy now?” he mumbles, laying on his back, his head on Mingi’s outstretched hand, Mingi on his side turned into him. His voice still sounds rough, so he coughs once, twice, trying to get that feeling out of his throat.

Mingi’s actually _a lot_. A lot for Wooyoung in many ways, and his dick is only one of them. Not even San, who’s made his lack of gag reflex incredibly obvious to Wooyoung by deepthroating many not exactly appropriate objects at a many times, could probably easily take Mingi.

“Does Yunho have a big dick?” he croaks, throat raw all of a sudden.

“Yeah,” Mingi cringes, clearly feeling guilty.

“As big as yours?”

“Mmm, around, yeah.”

“Lucky bastard.”

“They’re so cute,” Wooyoung elbows Yeosang, pointing his head to Hongjoong and San. Across from Yeosang and him, the two of them are poured over their Korean book, almost butting heads, quietly arguing about an exercise, it seems. Even if it’s the collaborative section of the library, they still need to be quieter than normal, and seem to be struggling with that.

“You know you have two native speakers right across from you, right?” Wooyoung asks slightly louder, seeing they haven’t moved from what they were doing for the past five minutes.

“Okay,” Hongjoong asks, sitting up and throwing his book across the table. “What’s the answer to 13?”

Wooyoung gives it a cursory glance. “It’s B.”

“It’s C,” Yeosang responds almost at the same time, earning themselves two skeptical looks.

“Native speakers, huh?”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Wooyoung throws to Yeosang in Korean, his eyebrow raised. “It can’t be that because it’s a positive action,” he continues in English.

“You think making him go to a party is a positive action?”

“Yes!”

“It’s not, because he didn’t want it; read the sentence on.”

“That’s _not_ what it says; it says he thought he wouldn’t have gone unless the person told him he could. Think about it, if you talked to me about this, wouldn’t you use the positive implication?”

“Uhm, no,” Yeosang counteracts, and that’s when Hongjoong leans over and picks his book pack up.

“Okay, that was helpful, thank you,” he elongates his _thank you_ quite cutely, and Yeosang’s mouth drops and closes back up with a subtle swallow. So he admits Wooyoung was right.

“Put B and tell me what your teacher says,” Wooyoung says, and doesn’t catch what they actually chose. “Okay, I actually don’t care about any of this homework. We’ve stopped, let’s take a break.”

They end up doing just that, getting coffee from the basement cafe and hanging out at one of the tables. Hongjoong elbows San. “So… I heard congratulations are in order.”

Wooyoung grins. Yeosang arches an eyebrow. “What for?”

“Yunho and him finally got their shit together,” Hongjoong laughs, joined by Wooyoung, while San buries his head in his hands.

“They’re _so_ obnoxious,” Wooyoung teases San. “The things I’ve heard…” he shudders like he’s scarred, and San throws an arm across the table.

“Shut up, we didn’t do anything.”

“Mhm, sure,” Wooyoung laughs, and turns to Hongjoong. “So, hyung… what about you and Seonghwa-hyung?”

“What about me and Seonghwa?”

“You two are a thing, right?” Wooyoung asks, and looks at Yeosang for back-up. Yeosang doesn’t move, his eyes trained on Hongjoong.

“No? Where did you get that from?”

_“Really?”_

“Yes, I’m not dating anyone, and don’t really intend to,” Hongjoong says, firm. “What about you, Wooyoung?” he turns the question, and Wooyoung laughs.

“I’m also not dating anyone, and don’t intend to.”

“Are you sure?”

“Mmm,” Wooyoung nods. “I’m 100% sure.”

At some point, Wooyoung accepts that he can’t really stop thinking about it. About that night.

Tuesday night, staring at his ceiling, book forgotten somewhere next to him because he’s exhausted from a paper he needed to finish tonight and an exam on Thursday he needs to study for... he realizes that somewhere, somehow, it had all become a dangerously quick landslide that took Wooyoung with it, and whenever he calls Mingi up, it feels… different.

The worst is that Wooyoung doesn’t think anything changed. They’re just the same, they’re _still_ fuck buddies that don’t interact that much outside Mingi (and now Wooyoung’s) bedroom, so nothing has really changed.

But Wooyoung still can’t stop thinking about that night. About the fact that he’s never felt so free. Ever. It had done little in the moment, maybe, the realization that he had all of these things that he never thought he’d have in college, but when he came back home and realized it, it felt absolutely freeing. Like nothing else. He thought he’d go through college like the repressed person he had been in high school, putting on a facade of everything good about him while determinedly hiding the rest, but... he didn’t.

He’s _out_ here. And while he pretends to be a shit student, he _isn’t,_ really, and he’s gotten more comfortable with not keeping that so close to his chest anymore. He’s… not the most popular person in his high school anymore, not the most liked/disliked/on the tip of everyone’s tongue person… he’s just Wooyoung. And it feels weird.

Fiddling with his phone, he sees a message from Mingi that hadn’t been there twenty minutes ago, and sighs.

_**‘Woo? Wanna come over?’** _

Wooyoung doesn’t know if he does. Doesn’t know if he’s in the right space to fuck right now.

_‘Can we smoke again?’_

_**‘Sure. I’ll get it ready for you’** _

Fuck Song Mingi. Emphatically and with passion. Fuck him for bringing things to him, and messing up Wooyoung’s thoughts. _Fuck him._

“Hi.”

“Hi,” Wooyoung nods, not looking at Mingi, taking off his jacket and his shoes and laying them on Mingi’s floor.

“You good?”

“Mmm,” Wooyoung shakes his head to the left once, and steps into Mingi’s space. Maybe he doesn’t feel like fucking, but… he wants to be kissed.

Mingi’s hand on the back of his neck pulls him into his lips, his teeth slowly teasing at Wooyoung’s bottom lip. It’s like a greeting, Mingi’s way of saying hi.

Wooyoung pulls away and sits cross legged on his bed, watching as Mingi comes over to the bed with a joint and a lighter this time.

“I don’t have anything else right now,” he waves it at Wooyoung in lieu of a question.

“That’s fine. I’m leeching anyway, I’ll buy some next time.” And after realizing he doesn’t know _from where_ , “... I’ll pay you for it.”

“Don’t even think about it,” Mingi waves his hand, and turns off all the lights besides a small lamp next to his bed. Wooyoung just now notices the low R&B that’s playing from that speaker on his desk. “We can lie down, if you want. It will make it easier to cough, but…”

Lying down sounds really great right now, Wooyoung thinks, and huddles up to the wall, making space for Mingi next to him. It’s a single bed, so they’re all pressed up against each other, Mingi’s hip digging into his, Wooyoung’s arm pressing up on his ribs.

Mingi lights it up and takes the first puff; the smoke mostly flies out through the cracked open window next to his bed, but some stays. Wooyoung takes it when Mingi hands the lit-up joint to him, and pulls it up to his lips. At least this he’s done before; he pulls from it, feels the thick smoke travel down his airways and he coughs as it goes out, just the slightest bit.

He hands it back to Mingi.

“You can do it again, if you want.”

Wooyoung nods, feeling Mingi’s eyes on his. He pulls from it again, and tries not to cough this time as he lets the smoke out on an exhale and relaxes against Mingi’s pillow.

He likes that Mingi never asks what’s wrong. It’s not even that he holds back from asking what’s so clearly on his mind—it’s that he seems he’s never curious. His curiosity will never come above Wooyoung’s comfort, him wanting to share of his own will. The silence doesn’t feel pressuring.

“Life is just kind of shit.” Sometimes, Wooyoung does want to share.

“Huh. It really is. School?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Wooyoung shrugs, taking the joint back from Mingi when he’s done. “I don’t even know. It’s intense, but sometimes it doesn’t hit that hard. Sometimes it hits worse.”

It’s really hard to tell why.

“Because it interacts with a lot of things from life, maybe. If you’re feeling worse about something else at some point, it’s gonna be worse.”

Is Wooyoung? He hasn’t called his parents in a bit, maybe that’s an issue. He doesn’t know… what he has to say. It seems like something’s changed, and he doesn’t even know what or how to say it to them. He pulls from the joint again, and sees the irony in thinking about his parents now.

“I don’t know, maybe. It’s just a lot.”

“I know,” Mingi replies. “It’s a lot for me too. A lot of everyone, I think. You just gotta go with it and find things that make you happy.”

“Never seems to be,” Wooyoung counteracts, happy for the distraction.

“Never seems to be what?”

“Never seems to be too much for you,” Wooyoung says, passing the joint back to Mingi. “You’re so consistent. And… I don’t know, stable.”

“You think I’m stable?” Mingi chuckles, low. Suddenly, the breeze from the window travels chills through Wooyoung. “I’m not, trust me.”

“I never see it.”

“I… we don’t hang out much.”

Wooyoung cringes a tad bit. True. True. They don’t, except… well, fucking.

He doesn’t know what to say to that though. The joint gets back to him.

“There’s probably only a couple more pulls in that,” Mingi tells him, and Wooyoung pulls twice and hands it back to him, head turned to Mingi. Mingi takes one more hit, stubs it in the ashtray on his nightstand, and turns back to look at Wooyoung, mirrored positions, heads turned to face each other.

Wooyoung bites his bottom lip, head sort of comfortably fuzzy. “I kinda wanna kiss you.”

Mingi comes closer, the tip of his nose pressing against Wooyoung’s cheek as his lips touch Wooyoung’s, soft, a barely-there, feather press that makes Wooyoung’s lips tickle.

Mingi presses harder. Wooyoung wraps a hand in one side of his slightly unbuttoned shirt and answers with a little whimper when Mingi bites his bottom lip again, and slides his lips intently alongside his.

The kiss is slow, dragged out, nothing like their usual make-out sessions, but Wooyoung feels that stirring in his stomach that makes him push forward a tad more, lick into Mingi’s open mouth and swallow the moan that leaves him.

It’s not like last time. This time, Wooyoung came here not wanting and now feels the desire burn low and steady in his stomach, and it’s weird. Confusing, to say the least… because it’s different, from how he usually wants. Usually he wants the sensations, the way a good fuck makes him feel, something in him and around him to make him feel better and forget everything he’s struggling with. He wants hands on him, something to press on him, or to ride someone until he can’t figure out where he ends and where they begin.

Now… now there’s a heat in his chest and something pulling him tightly to Mingi, and a red-hot blanket in his brain that says he wants _Mingi_ to swallow him whole, take him apart and put him back together.

He doesn’t wanna _think._ Pulling away, he throws one thigh over Mingi’s and pushes them until Wooyoung’s straddling him, both of Mingi’s hands on his neck, pulling him into a heated kiss. Wooyoung moans in it, groans a low, rough sound when their crotches brush.

Mingi pulls away for a breath, and Wooyoung collapses on his chest, back arched and hands in Mingi’s hair. “I need you to fuck me so bad right now.”

“We can… if you want,” Mingi pants a hard breath and answers, thumbs digging under Wooyoung’s jaw, Mingi’s breath on Wooyoung’s cheek.

“I didn’t… get ready,” Wooyoung says, _again_ , again his fault, and he realizes it’s the second time he didn’t expect to end up wanting to fuck Mingi, and yet here he is.

“It’s fine. We can do something else,” Mingi pulls him back in and kisses him, and Wooyoung accidentally grinds down into Mingi, hands tightening in his hair at the sudden pleasure.

And then he can’t stop. For all that’s worth, it doesn’t seem like Mingi can either, moaning into each other’s mouths as they grind up against each other, sort of frenzied but still slow, focus muddled by the weight of the weed. Mingi’s tongue slides on his, hot and wet, over and over again—Wooyoung doesn’t let up for one breath, couldn’t even imagine breaking apart to come up for air because he doesn’t need it, doesn’t want more than this.

Mingi’s bulge drags against his, his cock straining against his jeans, more and more, harder and harder, Mingi’s hands traveling down to hold Wooyoung’s ass with both hands and help him along, press him down harder.

 _Fuck_ , he lives for this—for Mingi’s hands on him, pressing him down, and it’s so easy for him to think of how Mingi does that when Wooyoung rides him, touching him, everywhere…

The pressure builds in his stomach until he comes all of a sudden, entirely too quick, taking him by surprise as he gasps in Mingi’s mouth, quickly swallowed by him, and trembles under the intensity of it, letting Mingi steal the air from his lungs.

Under him, he feels Mingi move to the side, pressing up against his hip, grinding against it instead, knowing Wooyoung is sensitive.

 _“Fuck,_ Wooyoung…” Wooyoung pushes him on, biting at the side of Mingi’s neck, trying to help him come, grinding down harder on him, since he’s come way sooner than he thought.

He feels when Mingi breaks, digging nails in Wooyoung’s clothed ass, pushing him down on him; Wooyoung kisses Mingi’s open mouth, feels as he gets himself together with a moan to kiss Wooyoung back, this time slower, more relaxed.

Wooyoung can’t believe that he came in his pants and in probably like less than five minutes, and the worst part is that he couldn’t care less, as he fully lets his weight go on Mingi and feels Mingi’s arms come to wrap around his back.

“I’m tired.”

“I know. Me too,” Mingi answers, and Wooyoung feels his eyelids drop. And for no reason does he want to do anything about that. Even as he feels incredibly gross and fairly uncomfortable.

“Thanks for that. That felt good,” Wooyoung mumbles, moaning a little as one of Mingi’s hands comes to thread through his hair.

“Of course. I like…” Mingi pauses, and it registers just as a brush on his consciousness in Wooyoung’s half asleep state. “... hanging out with you.”

“Mmm,” Wooyoung responds.

“Wooyoung?” He startles awake at hearing his name called, realizing…

Fuck. _Mingi?_

“What time is it?” he rasps, alarmed.

“It’s like 8 AM. You have class at 9, right?” Mingi whispers, and Wooyoung finally registers where he is. In Mingi’s bed, cradled up to his chest, one of Mingi’s arms thrown around his waist.

Fuck. _Fuck._ He fell asleep here? How did he fall asleep here?

“I have to go,” he throws at Mingi, jumping out the bed right away, immediately regretting the fact that he didn’t shower last night because he feels _awful_. He registers that Mingi’s in the same clothes, so he probably didn’t shower either.

Fuck, he messed _up._ How did he fall asleep?

Mingi doesn’t say anything as Wooyoung frantically patters about his room, picking up his coat and his phone and his wallet with his keys.

“I’ll see you later,” he frantically throws, and prays to all gods that Yunho isn’t out there.

He isn’t, so Wooyoung can get out without anyone seeing him, getting back to his dorm faster than he ever had. When he walks into his room and calms down since he still has like 40 minutes before class, he sees San staring at him.

“Where were you? I was wondering, but you didn’t answer my calls.”

“I slept over at someone’s place,” Wooyoung says, fully honest. He can’t figure out a different response.

“Figured. Who?”

“Does it matter? It won’t happen again,” he picks up his shower kit and some clothes and opens the door, hearing San let out a hum behind him.

It surely won’t happen again. Ever. Wooyoung will make sure.

San doesn’t ask questions when Wooyoung asks him to go to a party this Friday, despite the fact that exam weeks have already started. He brings Yunho along too, and they somehow manage to make their way to a party they usually wouldn’t go to, to a house on the edge of campus that’s very well famous for the kind of stuff they throw.

The kind where you go just to hook up, experiment with _things_ you otherwise wouldn’t. Wooyoung’s been here before and left after half an hour because he wasn’t ready.

But now he is. Swiveling his hips, he meets eyes with a guy across the room, leaning against the wall with his eyes on Wooyoung.

Wooyoung gets it now; that he can bring people to him with just how he looks, with his shirt half-open and his eyes dropped, his hips rolling against whatever slow, dirty song blasts out of the speakers. He approaches the guy this time, just a little moving on the dancefloor, just enough to get away from Yunho and San.

He comes halfway to Wooyoung as well. Hands heavy on his hips, the guy turns him around to press to his back, Wooyoung huffing when he gets manhandled. He likes the feeling—has always liked the feeling of hands on his hips moving him around; the guy pulls him back on him, for Wooyoung’s ass to drag on his crotch, and kisses up the side of his neck.

If the guy doesn’t bother with names, Wooyoung won’t either.

“Wanna get away from here?”

Wooyoung nods.

That’s what he’s here for, right?

The guy leads him to the back somewhere, until the music mostly fades and they’re in a small, mostly dark room. The guy turns one of the lights on; Wooyoung goes to kiss him, but he puts a hand on Wooyoung’s chest.

“None of that,” he laughs, turning Wooyoung around and pushing him up on a wall, Wooyoung’s hands pressed between his chest and hard wood. The guy presses on his back, hands on his hips, and…

In a second, Wooyoung realizes he’s lost it. Quite a while ago. The guy’s hands on his hips feel weird, _wrong._ Wooyoung pushes back from the wall right away, shoving the guy back and hearing him stumble.

“What the fuck?”

“Sorry,” Wooyoung turns around without another word, heading to where they came from. He hopes he remembers the way. “Maybe another time.”

Thankfully, the guy doesn’t follow him as Wooyoung leaves and makes his way back to the party. He spots Yunho right away, with his light-colored hair and tall self, and tugs at his hand, wrapping his other around San’s forearm.

“Can we leave?” he whispers to San, who nods right away and takes his hand in his. On his other side, Yunho wraps a hand around his shoulder and lets go when they need to scramble between people, holding on to his wrist instead.

Only when outside and far away from the party does Wooyoung stop, and take a second to breathe. The whole night feels far away now; the whole _maybe_ twenty minutes he was at that party a distant memory. _He_ feels far away, kind of disconnected from the thoughts running through his head.

“Are you okay?” San asks, putting a hand on his arm and rubbing it comfortingly.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” Wooyoung nods. He’s fine… he’s okay.

It felt strange, for those few minutes that it happened; Wooyoung felt _used_ , which is a feeling that he usually enjoys, to have someone take the lead and push him against the wall and take—but not in the way it went through now. He never felt like he didn’t have control when it happened before.

With Mingi. Mingi never made him feel like that. He let Mingi do whatever he wanted (always at Wooyoung’s prompting) and he never felt disrespected or not in control.

 _“Fuck,”_ he swears under his breath, low.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Yunho puts a hand on his other arm, Wooyoung looks down at it and back up at Yunho and San.

“Yeah. Can we get some drinks somewhere?”

They end up at the bar a bit further away from campus, where fake IDs are never questioned. Wooyoung has a couple of cocktails and makes conversation with Yunho and San, and tries not to think about anything.

It works for a couple of hours. Until a bit past midnight, when Wooyoung picks up his phone while Yunho and San are out to get one more drink, and unthinkingly finds his texts with Mingi.

_‘Are you up?’_

He sends it without thinking. He needs this. He needs to see if there’s something wrong with him.

_**‘Yeah, in my room. Wanna come over?’** _

_‘Can I?’_

_**‘You know you always can’** _

_‘I’ll be there in like 20’_

“I’ll be gone for a bit,” he tells Yunho and San when they come back, drinks in their hand. “Sorry.”

San sneaks a look at Yunho. “No worries. I think we’re just gonna sleep in my room, so be quiet when you come back,” he tells him, and Wooyoung nods.

“Thank you,” he hugs both of them, letting the gratitude shine through his voice. He really is thankful for them.

He just… needs to find out something.

And that is why 30 minutes later, Wooyoung finds himself face down ass up, on his knees on Mingi’s mattress, Mingi’s cock hitting spots inside him he didn’t even know _existed._

“Do you like this?” Mingi whispers in his ear, such a contrast to where one hand is pressing on Wooyoung’s back, keeping him flush to the mattress, and one wraps around Wooyoung’s nape, holding _tight._ “Is this what you want? What you asked for?”

Wooyoung would answer, but Mingi’s fucking all concentration out of him, his mind scattered somewhere on the pillow pressing into his cheek, feeling nothing but the heavy weight of Mingi’s cock slamming inside him over and over again, _hard_ and _rough._

_Fuck me like you hate me. Put that useless cock to good use and treat me like I’m the worst thing that’s ever happened to your life._

_Yes,_ he wants to scream. _Yes yes yes,_ _just like that_ , except his mouth is muffled by the mattress and all that comes out are desperate whines; Mingi pulls out almost all the way, slow, and then _slams_ into Wooyoung hard enough to drive him up the bed, a wrecked moan coming out from the depths of Wooyoung’s chest.

 _It feels so good_ , and Wooyoung wants to beg for more, more of everything, but he _can’t_ because he’s completely at Mingi’s mercy, cock pressed between his stomach and the bed as Mingi fucks him through the mattress, literally, setting a steady, hard pace that rings out slapping sounds through the room.

And Wooyoung feels _used_ , roughed up in the absolute best way, twisting his head to the side to breathe when Mingi lets go just a little bit—except he ends up screaming, shouting as Mingi gets deep inside him and punches out little thrusts that suddenly feel _so deep_.

 _Fuck_ , Wooyoung feels Mingi all the way up in his chest as he slides up the bed with every powerful thrust, his cock brushing uncomfortably against the bed, and he knows he’s gonna come. He’s gonna come just like this, just from Mingi using him however he wants, entirely untouched, just from the weight of Mingi inside him and the way he couldn’t move an inch, hands trapped under himself, _helpless._

But he doesn’t.

Because Mingi turns him around, pushes his legs to his chest and makes Wooyoung wrap his arms around them so he can thrust back in—hard, his hands pushing on the backs of Wooyoung’s thighs as he thrusts into him with so much force Wooyoung trembles, shivering in Mingi’s hold.

 _Fuckfuckfuckfuck._ His thighs hurt from the stretch but he _loves_ _it,_ couldn’t care less because like this, Mingi can pull out for a little more and hit his spot just right, and Wooyoung _loses it._

He comes _so hard_ he blacks out, realizes through the edge of his consciousness when Mingi makes him let go of his thighs and gets his hand on Wooyoung’s cock, turning the pleasure into one so acute, so sharp it genuinely _hurts._

Just like Wooyoung likes it. When he comes back into himself, Mingi’s hand is making loud, wet noises on his cock and Wooyoung trembles, trying to get away except he doesn’t want to—so he takes Mingi’s brutal pace inside him and that sharp ache that doesn’t let him get soft, hands twisted _tight_ in the sheets to get some semblance of grounding when he feels like he’s floating above everything.

 _“So good,_ so good, fuck… _” Gosh,_ does Mingi know how to fuck him just right. Know when to let go right before Wooyoung comes for the second time, but still keep that intense pace even as he claws at Mingi’s chest and Mingi bends down to kiss him.

And that… _that’s_ the best thing. When Mingi’s tongue slips into his mouth as he’s wrecking him, Wooyoung’s nails digging into his shoulder and Mingi’s hands pressing bruises into his waist.

Mingi comes deep inside him with a hard exhale and some desperate moans in Wooyoung’s mouth—Wooyoung tugs him closer, _closer_ , and begs for Mingi to make him come again as he feels him twitch inside him.

Mingi does, keeps his pace as he wraps a hand around Wooyoung’s cock and bites marks under his collarbone; Wooyoung’s given up on making him stop a long time ago when he realized he could hide them under a hoodie or a sweatshirt, and press on them in front of the mirror to feel the pain bloom across his skin. The pleasure is _too much_ , but it doesn’t stop Wooyoung from building up again, crying out desperately as Mingi tugs at him, and says something in his chest Wooyoung can’t discern, the vibrations traveling across his skin.

And he _comes_ , for the second time, crying out desperate moans, and knowing Mingi’s held up his promise. To make Wooyoung _scream_ his name.

He does. He cries it out until the last dregs of his orgasm, a tear falling out from his eyes at how hard he’s come. When Mingi pulls out, Wooyoung lets out another desperate moan, and feels entirely _empty._ Wasted. Done, with that pleasure blooming across his body settling pleasantly in his chest.

They lay there for a bit, Mingi turned into him and running a hand through his hair, until Wooyoung feels the last of those overlying feelings disappear, and the sex slowly leave his brain. It’s comfortable like this.

However, that doesn’t stop him from sitting up on Mingi’s bed with a groan even as the pain through his lower back hits him hard, at the same time Mingi gets up to get rid of the condom.

“I need to go,” Wooyoung says, and for what reason does he announce it? He doesn’t know, he can just leave, but Mingi turns around to him, condom in the bin and his sweatpants tugged across his hips.

“Wooyoung… come on,” Mingi takes another few steps to him, and Wooyoung feels _everything._ The pain in his lower back, on his hips, on the back of his neck, the stretch in his legs… it feels _so good_ , but he still needs to leave.

Even as Mingi looks at him like _that._ He can’t be here; he picks up his shirt and underwear from the end of the bed, getting up and putting them on.

“Why do you… have to leave every single time. Come on, stay, let me...”

Wooyoung doesn’t know. Except he has to. He doesn’t _want_ to stay.

“I can’t, Mingi. I have work to do,” he stands up, ignoring the pain as he bends down to pick up his jeans, and then looking at Mingi when he does put them on, coat on. “Don’t mistake this for something it isn’t,” he whispers and presses a kiss to Mingi’s cheek. He hears a protest rise in Mingi’s throat, and a hand catch on to his wrist, but it lets go just as quickly.

As he ignores the pain on the way back to the dorm, walking while looking up at the dark sky and with the memory of Mingi inside him and the tight hands on him like a ghost feeling, still so present, he wonders what it was.

What the difference was.

Because Wooyoung doesn’t get it. He thought it was just the roughness, that maybe he doesn’t like it anymore, but if tonight proved something, it’s that he _does._ He loves being thrown around; he loves the feeling of hands on him, pressing and caressing all over before he gets fucked and wrecked and roughed up to all hell. The same way he loves riding Mingi until he can’t hold it together anymore, and Wooyoung gets high on the satisfaction of making him that way.

So he doesn’t see what the problem was there.

The next time they fuck around, Mingi still all so willing to answer his texts... Wooyoung _gets it._

It’s that discussion before the sex, when he’s on Mingi’s lap, they’re both ridiculously turned on, and yet he doesn’t feel rushed in any way to say what’s on his mind. And it’s the one second break between Mingi putting his hands on his hips and throwing him around so he’s on his back under him, checking to see that Wooyoung still wants it; that searching look when both of Wooyoung’s wrists are held in Mingi’s big hand, pinned above his head.

The way Mingi loves praise—and Wooyoung, always the praised and never the praiser, finds it slipping from his lips anyway, when Mingi does something he enjoys particularly much. The way that nowadays, no matter where they start, they always end up in missionary. Or with Wooyoung riding Mingi, facing him... so he can see.

So they can see each other.

The difference is that he’s become comfortable with Mingi. He feels respected and trusts him every single time they do something, no matter what it is.

And _gosh,_ does Wooyoung _hate_ that.

After the third text which gets an excuse about finals and studying as a response, Wooyoung thinks Mingi has finally gotten it. Because he stops texting.

Thank god, because Wooyoung doesn’t know how much longer he would’ve been able to hold back from saying something shitty and entirely unwarranted to him. Contrary to popular belief (one part of his mind), he doesn’t want to hurt Mingi.

He just needs space. For a long while.

Thankfully, finals are enough of an excuse that not even San notices the changes. How Wooyoung doesn’t leave his room as often as he did, how he studies more, hangs out with everyone less, sits in his bed and watches sitcoms he’s already seen when he was just learning English.

Plus, San has other _stuff_ to be preoccupied with. Wooyoung doesn’t judge—he just wishes that he and Yunho weren’t even discrete in attempting to make out in the other bed. Somehow, he thinks it would feel better if they just… let go and do it, instead of trying to be careful and tiptoe around it for Wooyoung’s sake.

At least then Wooyoung would get a free show out of it.

Plus, Yunho has a single room; Wooyoung doesn’t understand why he has to be the witness to whispers he can’t really hear and cut-off groans, when they could just go to Yunho’s place, unless—

_Is Mingi fucking someone else?_

He slams his laptop shut. “I’m going to the library.”

Two days from the last time the three of them were in this position, it happens again.

It’s a bit too tempting, the thought running through his head; the phone is so close, and it’s Thursday. He could… pick it up, and text Mingi, and ignore San and Yunho getting even bolder in the bed next to his, thinking he can’t hear because he has headphones on. One text, and he could fix all the threads of something running under his skin, put an equal sign after the equation and add the rough fuck after it to solve it. And it would be _fine._

But he can’t, because he _can’t._ Plain and simple.

When Yunho and San eventually stop and pick up their own laptops because Yunho came to _study_ since tomorrow’s his last exam, Wooyoung won’t be an asshole and point out the new hickey on San’s neck. It’s none of his business, but he sees it. He sees it.

And feels bitter, just the slightest. Because he could have the same thing, and yet he _can’t._

An hour or so later, San slams his book down. “Let’s take a break.”

So they break into San’s snack supply, San on the bed with Yunho on the floor laying between his legs, and Wooyoung on the floor, sitting cross legged, laying back on his own bed. San plays with Yunho’s hair, running comforting hands through it.

“Are you going home soon?” Wooyoung asks, realizing the semester is almost over. It flew away so quickly, and he barely realized.

“Yeah, we’re going home in like three days?”

“We?”

“Yeah, Mingi and I.”

“Hmm, you’re flying together?”

The pause makes Wooyoung lift his head from the chips he was searching for. Yunho’s biting his lip in his mouth, looking uncertain.

“Uh… yeah. But Mingi’s also staying at my place.”

“For how long?” Wooyoung lifts his eyebrows.

“For the whole break. Mingi stays with me during most of our shorter breaks, except when he goes up to Seoul for a little and stays at a hotel.”

“Why?” Wooyoung’s eyebrows raise.

“I… uh, I don’t think that’s my story to tell. Sorry, but you can ask him yourself. I’m sure he won’t mind telling you.”

When Yunho and San are back with their books and Wooyoung is laying on his bed with his laptop on his knees, he takes out his phone.

Going to his texts with Mingi is familiar; he scrolls up, sees the many brief conversations they’ve had, and the few longer ones. Gets to the sexts they sent when Wooyoung was in class… stares at the pictures for longer than necessary. At the one he sent Mingi too, and remembers the excitement when he did, that taboo feeling running through him.

He’s been really shitty recently. When he scrolls up and sees the conversations they used to have in the summer, the times where they actually used to _talk_ , as little as it was… yeah, Wooyoung’s been way shittier than necessary to Mingi.

Soon enough, he gets back to the first texts they shared, back in February. It’s now December; it’s been ten months.

Except for summer break pretty much, he’s seen Mingi every week. If he counts… close to a hundred times. He’s seen Mingi almost a hundred times. He’s slept with Mingi almost a hundred times.

_**‘I had so much fun’** _

**_‘Oh yeah, this is Mingi by the way’_ **

**_‘Hope I can see you again?’_ **

Wooyoung sighs, goes back and clicks on Mingi’s message thread again, to get to the bottom.

_‘Hi’_

The answer comes maybe five minutes later; Wooyoung scrolls YouTube, scrolls Instagram, scrolls Twitter, retweets some pictures of Jimin and then opens the messages on his computer.

_**‘Hi, Wooyoung’** _

Wooyoung switches his keyboard to Korean and pauses for just a second.

_‘I’m sorry that I couldn’t hang out recently’_

_‘I got kinda carried away with finals’_

_**‘I know, you did that last semester too’** _

**_‘No worries, glad to know youre okay’_ **

Did Wooyoung? He gets like this during finals, so maybe he did.

_‘Did you finish?’_

_**‘I did, yeah, yesterday’** _

_‘When are you going home?’_

_**‘In like three days’** _

_‘Oh… where are you staying?’_

The texts pause for just a second. Wooyoung bites his pointer nail in his mouth.

**_‘Did Yunho tell you?’_ **

_‘...... yeah. Sorry’_

_‘He didn’t say why though, said I should ask you’_

**_‘I’ll tell you when we hang out sometime’_ **

_‘Okay’_

_‘That’s not fully why I texted tho’_

_‘Wanted to ask… when you come up to Seoul, wanna stay at my place?’_

Well… that’s sent now. The _Delivered_ under it teases Wooyoung, and so do the appearing and disappearing bubbles to the left of it.

_**‘Do you… mean that?’** _

And well, Wooyoung isn’t an asshole _like that._ He’d never do that.

_‘You know that I didn’t ask just to ask. I mean it’_

_‘You can… stay in my room. My parents won’t mind’_

_**‘I’d love that’** _

**_‘Thank you, Woo’_ **

The Gwangju bus pulls into the station a little after its arrival time of 9:04 AM. Wooyoung yawns into the iced Americano in his left hand, taking a big sip and swallowing it right as Mingi gets down and looks to the left, spotting Wooyoung on the bench.

“Hi.”

“You’re drinking an iced Americano? It’s the middle of winter,” Mingi crooks an eyebrow. And then crooks his other one, his mouth dropping slightly, as Wooyoung hands off the hot drink in his right hand to him. “For me?”

“Yeah. I also have some kimbap in here, if you’re hungry,” Wooyoung lifts the bag around his left wrist, letting it swish around.

“Yeah, I’d love some,” Mingi nods, and Wooyoung takes off the bag and gives it to him. While Mingi unpacks the top of the convenience store steak kimbap roll, Wooyoung lets his eyes run over him.

He’s wearing ripped light blue jeans and a white printed shirt under a large beige coat that falls below his knees, unbuttoned. His black backpack’s swung over one shoulder, and he looks effortless. Effortlessly _hot,_ light hair swept back onto his forehead, sunglasses perched on his head.

It is a sunny day, warmer day despite it being the middle of winter; Mingi’s outfit fits right in. Wooyoung realizes the glances they invite while they talk, with Wooyoung in his unbuttoned sweater, tight jeans, and padding; they don’t look too shabby.

“You look amazing,” Mingi tells him in English when they reach the exit of the station and head to the subway.

“Thank you,” Wooyoung answers also in English. He didn’t… okay, he _did_ try. He did put an effort this morning into looking at least _good._ “You do too.”

Mingi does. Wooyoung kind of maybe wants to wrap his hand in the collar of Mingi’s shirt and tug him down for a kiss, get Mingi’s tongue swiping into his mouth. His hands—

Well, it’s been a while. Who can blame Wooyoung?

“We can go over to my apartment, so you can drop off your backpack.”

“Okay. I’m actually meeting my brother tomorrow, so… I’m free today. If you wanna do something.”

Wooyoung was gonna ask; he was kinda hoping he’d have time to hang out. Life at home has been way more boring than he expected it to be since his friends are still busy, and while he loves his little brother, he’s excited to hang out with someone his age.

Stepping through the door of his apartment with Mingi in tow is an experience for Wooyoung. He’s never brought people home even when he was in middle school or before, partly because of his family’s situation back then… so to have _Mingi_ , the person who he’s been fucking on a constant basis halfway across the world stepping through the doors of his parents’ apartment… is a sight.

“I’m home,” Wooyoung shouts, hoping he’ll get no answer. He doesn’t.

He shows Mingi the way to his room, and lets him drop his backpack on the floor. When Mingi turns around…

Wooyoung takes one step to him, hoping his look tells Mingi enough. He seems to get it, by how he tugs softly on Wooyoung’s coat and fits his arms on his hips, over his jacket. Wooyoung’s hands come up to tug at the collar of Mingi’s coat too, pull Mingi closer as he tiptoes, and their lips meet.

It’s probably the slowest kiss they’ve ever shared. Wooyoung doesn’t want to call it an _I missed you_ kiss, because truthfully… he doesn’t, but Mingi’s lips move slowly on his like he’s exploring Wooyoung, getting reacquainted with a taste he’s ultimately familiar with. Wooyoung tilts his head so he can deepen it, pushing closer to him.

Mingi’s inhale is audible through the silence of the room, swiping his tongue over Wooyoung’s, his hands reaching further to wrap around Wooyoung’s back with a swish of fabric on his padding. There is nothing else but the cars on the street and the wet sounds of their kiss; Wooyoung’s curtains are pulled so his room is dark, and he can just get lost in the way they make out with way too much ease.

His hands reach up to wrap around Mingi’s neck, thumbs pressing over the base of it. Mingi exhales a little moan and kisses him deeper, slipping hands under his coat and over the little sliver of his skin where Wooyoung’s sweater rode up. His thumbs press circles into the curve of Wooyoung’s waist as they slow down, tongues tangling between them. Like always, it’s too messy and too wet, just how they both like it.

When Wooyoung pulls away, it’s self-preservation. There is a stir in his stomach and a shiver traveling up his back, points of contact between Mingi’s hands and his skin burning up hot. He won’t be able to stop if they keep going, and… Wooyoung would hate to risk anyone walking in to see him get fucked by Mingi on his childhood bed.

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t want it. He does, and it’s an unsettling realization, that. Something he doesn’t want to deal with right now; knowing the photos with his parents and his brother are staring at him from different places in the room…

Nope. Their lips break apart with a wet sound, and Wooyoung…

Just a little more. He presses up on Mingi’s lips, quick and insistent this time, enjoying the press of them on his own, the surprised tightening of Mingi’s hands on him.

And then he pulls away, hands slipping away from the slight chill remaining on Mingi’s skin. Mingi keeps his where they were and only one second after does he open his eyes—and instinctually drags his tongue over his bottom lip, eyes finding Wooyoung’s quickly after. Wooyoung bites his kiss-swollen lip between his teeth.

What would be the harm? His parents are at work, his brother’s at a hagwon until lunch…

Nope. No. Mingi coughs just a little as Wooyoung fully pulls away. Wooyoung thinks he should say something, but nothing seems appropriate enough. To say he missed Mingi would be... an overstatement. To say he missed _that,_ slightly insensitive.

“Let’s go?” he proposes instead, and sees Mingi nod.

“Lemme just get my wallet and my phone.”

“What do you wanna do?” Wooyoung asks as they exit their apartment, the doorbell ringing to signal the door is locked.

“I don’t know. What is there around?”

“There’s a shopping mall kind of building pretty close, and it also has an arcade and norebang and all that stuff. There’s also a few good cafes and restaurants around it, I guess.”

“That sounds good. Wanna go shopping?”

“Sure. I’d appreciate your fashion sense, I wanna buy more clothes for the spring.”

“Let’s go then,” Mingi smiles, and Wooyoung nods.

“I think this kinda stuff fits you really well,” Mingi pulls a patterned button-up shirt from a rack; it looks silky or something satin-like, and Wooyoung feels it between his fingers. It feels _luxurious_. “I’ve seen you in a couple, but you don’t look like you have too many. That and tight jeans… you look great.”

“Yeah, I like that,” Wooyoung lets Mingi take it in his arms, on top of the few oversized hoodies he’s already put there.

“Denim jacket?” It’s a light blue denim, and Wooyoung takes a peek at it.

“Yeah, I like that too.”

Suddenly, Mingi makes a weird noise that sounds halfway between… Wooyoung can’t even describe it, it sounds like satisfaction and surprise, and he pulls out a pair of what looks to be fake _leather pants_ from the rack. _“Please_ try these on.”

Leather pants… sure. Wooyoung will try them on, if Mingi likes them that much.

Wooyoung ends up with a couple more shirts in his hand and they head to the changing room. There’s _a lot_ of hangers on the little hook. Wooyoung picks up the leather pants to try on first, fits them with a black t-shirt they just picked up, and opens the curtain.

Mingi promptly chokes.

“Good?” he asks in English, and Mingi nods, coughing once more to clear his throat.

“Fuck,” he curses under his breath, whispering to Wooyoung. “You look so good. Your thighs look…”

Wooyoung’s never been one to really like his thick thighs, but with the way Mingi can’t seem to take his eyes off of his legs… this might be a worthy purchase.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah… Yeah, a hundred percent yes,” Mingi nods, his eyes small when he finally tears them away and looks up into Wooyoung’s.

In the end, Mingi isn’t that helpful, because he says yes to every single thing Wooyoung puts on himself. He ends up leaving with the pants, the denim jacket, a hoodie, and a couple of those oversized button-up shirts Mingi recommended. Mingi buys himself some shirts and a pair of pants, which is not a bad haul for a day. And then Wooyoung sees the sign for the arcade, and drags Mingi along to it.

“Did you come here before?” Mingi asks, probably seeing the ease with which Wooyoung navigates through the arcade.

“Yeah. I was here a lot in middle school and high school. Used to hang out with my friends here.”

This is also where Wooyoung had his first kiss, back in middle school. In the bathroom, with a girl he liked; she tasted like fake blueberries and it was all wet, quick, trembling and hesitant. He still enjoyed it. Enjoyed it when he ended up sleeping with her too, a couple years later.

For a while, before he realized he couldn’t again.

“What did you like to do?” Mingi asks, breaking Wooyoung out of his thoughts.

“DDR was my jam.”

“Oh you gotta show me that,” Mingi laughs, and Wooyoung follows, pulling him in the direction of the room with the few arcade-style games. It’s mostly empty, and one of the DDR games is free. Wooyoung pulls out his wallet and puts 1000 won in it, handing his wallet and phone to Mingi who sits on the bench right behind him.

He’s clearly out of practice, making mistakes right when he starts, but he picks it up quickly to the amazed sounds of Mingi behind him, who hypes him up and shouts when Wooyoung does something particularly well. His own personal cheerleader. It would be embarrassing in many other cases because his noises aren’t completely covered by the sounds of the room, but now Wooyoung chuckles, and gives it his all.

The _A_ on the screen isn’t a win, but for how long he’s been out of practice, he thinks it’s decent. He steps down from the DDR machine, and turns to Mingi, who emphatically claps for him.

“Is that how you got your thighs?” he asks Wooyoung in English, and Wooyoung slaps a hand on his chest with a laugh.

“Maybe,” Wooyoung chuckles, “there’s one more song. If you wanna try.”

“Oh no, I’m terrible at this shit.”

“Come on, I’ll teach you,” Wooyoung pulls him over, taking his phone and wallet back and taking Mingi’s. “Time for me to teach you something too, huh?”

“I guess,” Mingi answers, but he’s standing up on the thing like he’s being led to his death.

“Come on, it’s not that bad. Hold on to the thing at the back with one hand, not both. You’re gonna try to twist your body to reach everything when it comes.” Wooyoung starts the thing, and starts explaining to Mingi where to go.

In the end, Mingi doesn’t do _great_. But he doesn’t do too badly either, and it surely looks like he had fun when he steps down. His smile to Wooyoung makes him smile too.

Wooyoung pulls him along to a shooting game where he absolutely obliterates the paper, and Mingi does amazingly at archery, winning a small pink sheep? chicken? keychain that he hands to Wooyoung.

“Do you want it?”

“You… you won it though?” Wooyoung picks it up from Mingi with hesitation, holding it between them.

“I know,” he shrugs. “You can have it. It’s yours now.”

Wooyoung attaches it to his wallet, the fluffy white and pink sheep hanging out outside of his pocket. It looks… cute. He doesn’t ponder on it too much, pulling Mingi along to the next thing.

“Wanted to try this VR stuff; are you down?” Wooyoung points to two chairs in front of a screen; whenever they passed, the two people on it were moving with the chairs and yelling, so he guesses it’s something interesting.

“Sure, what is it?”

“Don’t know.”

The employee ends up explaining as he straps them down in the chairs, that it’s like a girl riding a bike and you follow her. He fails to say, however, just how _involved_ it is. Two seconds in, and they’re already dodging obstacles through a city, moving left to right; Wooyoung _loves_ it, and especially loves it when the city turns to ruins and they _jump_ to the next thing, feeling like they’re flying through the air.

Mingi seems like he’s loving it less, by the panicked noise he lets out next to Wooyoung. The girl picks up speed and all of a sudden, they’re jumping even further, and Mingi is _screaming_ by now, Wooyoung laughing along with him, and it’s _amazing_. The next time they jump, Mingi’s hand finds his, squeezing _tight,_ and only tightens when they jump again or bike alongside a narrow path; they look to the left, and the cliff has some rocks dropping down into nothingness. Mingi lets out a weak sound, and tightens his hand in Wooyoung’s.

By when the girl bikes back into the city, Wooyoung feels breathless with laughter. It’s only when the VR thing gets taken off from his head and he sees the screen in front he realizes where he is, and where he’s been all along, and how loud they were screaming.

Mingi’s hand doesn’t leave his, even as they get off and the guy goes to help two little girls at another game.

“Are you okay?” Wooyoung asks, seeing how Mingi’s knees are almost giving and he bends over, free hand on them.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, just… really afraid of heights.”

“Oh shit, sorry, I didn’t know.”

“No, it’s fine, it’s fine… it was an experience,” Mingi answers, hand still held tight in Wooyoung’s.

“Wanna go have lunch? There’s a great chicken place two floors above.” Enough excitement for today, Wooyoung thinks.

“Yeah. Yeah, that sounds great,” Mingi gets up, and after a quick last squeeze to Wooyoung’s hand, lets go. Wooyoung flexes it once, twice, getting used to the feeling of it without Mingi’s, hand reaching to his pocket.

The chicken place is too busy for them to talk properly, about more than their breaks and what their friends have been doing. They spend a good hour there, but when they’re done, Wooyoung finds he really doesn’t want to go home.

“Wanna have bingsu? There’s a Solbing down the street.”

“If it’s matcha, I’m down.”

Well, that’s great. Wooyoung _loves_ matcha bingsu.

In the Solbing, they find a more secluded table up a few steps in the corner. Because Mingi paid for the chicken, Wooyoung insists to pay for this, getting them the bingsu and two americanos to share. When he comes back with them, Mingi’s texting someone with a frown between his eyebrows. Wooyoung doesn’t ask until Mingi looks up, locking his phone and putting it face down on the table.

“Sorry. My brother asked me if I wanna see my parents tomorrow too.”

“And?”

“Nah, I don’t feel like it much,” he shrugs, picking up a spoon. “I guess I should tell you about it, huh?”

“Only if you wanna,” Wooyoung picks up his own, digging it into a bit of the ice cream on top. “Don’t wanna make you talk about it if you’re uncomfortable.”

“I’m not. I just… don’t share it with many people. I’m okay sharing it with you though,” Mingi nods, and Wooyoung looks up, absentmindedly swirling the matcha syrup with the ice, watching it turn green, as he looks at Mingi.

“My mom is a church leader, and… I told you before, but we’re pretty rich. Old money, my dad is a shareholder of a big company. I… yeah, that’s how my life mostly was. I had a tutor throughout high school and stuff, and I got into Yonsei. My parents wanted me to go, but… Yunho had gotten into this college in the US early action, and… we always said we’d go to college together. So I applied. And I got in.

“My parents disagreed, of course, but… I kinda decided to do it anyway. They said they wouldn’t fund me, but they changed their mind and decided they would eventually. If I committed to work at my father’s company during breaks. I realized it was just their way to kind of manipulate me into doing it, because they knew I wouldn’t have done it otherwise. Since they knew I depended on them.”

“And you agreed?”

“I did, at first. Uhm… yeah. Something happened after.”

Wooyoung doesn’t prod, but he puts his head on his hand and sips at his americano, looking at Mingi.

“I… used to hook up with this guy. He was in college, and… I didn’t really tell him I was going away for the longest time, because I knew he wouldn’t take it well.”

“Did he…?”

“Yup. He outed me to my parents a couple months before I was supposed to leave.”

Wooyoung’s mouth drops. “You gotta be kidding me.”

“Nope. He went and talked to my parents, showed them conversations we had, pictures we took and stuff. My parents _flipped._ You probably… can imagine.”

Wooyoung can. Sadly, he can, jaw hanging open at Mingi’s story.

“So they gave me an ultimatum. I… ‘stop doing that’ and go to Yonsei, or they won’t fund anything. And well, I don’t know. It’s not like I’m disowned or anything because I’m not, but they did revoke access to the trust fund I was supposed to get next year, and they said that as long as I’m in their house, I’ll behave.”

“So… what did you do?” Wooyoung asks in a low whisper, kind of taken aback.

“Well, I’m clearly not there. I contacted our uni, and explained the situation. They gave me a partial scholarship, I took out some loans from here, and I have a couple of jobs on campus to deal with the rest, plus in summers. Yunho’s parents were super supportive throughout the whole thing, and I also work during breaks with Yunho at their place as well, so it’s working out,” he shrugs.

And Wooyoung sees him in a completely different light.

“Holy shit.”

“Is that surprising?”

“I don’t know if it’s surprising, it’s just… it kinda sucks that you have to go through all that? I thought… for the longest time—” Wooyoung starts, and stops.

“You thought I was rich?” Mingi laughs, taking another bite of the bingsu.

“Sort of, yeah. I mean I don’t care, but you and Yunho always seemed… well-off, well-educated, that kinda stuff, you know? That kind of stuff ordinary people in Korea don’t usually have. Plus, your clothes and things, and your off-campus apartment.”

“I won’t lie to you, I was spoiled,” Mingi nods. “I grew up well. I guess you could tell from what I’ve told you before. Like, all of my clothes and things are from high school, and if they aren’t, they’re thrifted because I like fashion and learned how to shop cheap. And Yunho pays for our apartment.”

“All of it?”

“Most of it. I pay some utilities and groceries, that kinda stuff. To be fair, Yunho and his family are the reason I’m alive in so many ways, and I owe them a lot. They don’t mind, but I’ve promised them I’ll pay them back, and I will. At first through making something out of all of this, and myself, but yeah… I owe them a lot.”

“Woah,” Wooyoung shakes his head. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything,” there’s a hint of a smile playing at Mingi’s lips. “Everyone thinks things. I’ve learned to accept them and understand they come from different places.”

“You’re really cool,” Wooyoung whispers, before really realizing it. Mingi’s eyebrows rise. “Like… that’s a lot of shit to go through, but you seem to be dealing with it really well.”

“Ah…” Mingi fumbles a little with his words, dropping his head. Wooyoung doesn’t miss the reddening of his ears, the way he seems almost embarrassed now. “I have my angry moments. Many of them.”

“Still... you’re cool. And your family’s shit.”

Mingi laughs, throwing his head back, way too loudly for the silent corner of the cafe. Two girls at a few tables away turn their head to them, and Wooyoung turns back around.

“You think that?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m happy about that,” Mingi turns back with a grin. Wooyoung smiles.

“Do you… talk with your family?”

“Sometimes. My dad will email me sometimes, and you know I’m still in contact with my brother who also works at my dad’s firm. Not with my mom though. I guess she took it harder.”

“So… out of curiosity, if you date a girl, would they take you back?”

“Maybe. I don’t even know, to be fair,” he shrugs. “I guess it takes a lot to be part of their family, and I’m enjoying life too much to bother. I don’t want to lie to myself or others, so I’ll deal with it after college, probably try to fight for my trust fund or something.”

“But your brother asked if you wanna see your parents?”

“Yeah, they probably would want me for dinner or something to try to see where my head is at. Going home in peace would mean hints about me not being bi anymore, uncomfortable convos, and I’m not too into that idea right now,” he pauses, and then a mischievous smirk takes over his face, slowly, from one corner to the other. “Unless…”

“What?”

“If you’d ever wanna meet my parents, let me know,” Mingi grins. “Clearly no pressure.”

Wooyoung punches his arm. “Stop messing around.”

While they pick up ddeokbokki at his mom’s wishes, there is something Wooyoung wants to say, but he doesn’t know how to word it. Walking back the sun is starting to set, painting the sky pink, and just that sight gives Wooyoung courage. He zips up his padding, and turns to Mingi.

“Hey… can I ask you something?”

“Sure. What’s up?”

“Please don’t… out me to my parents.”

“They don’t know?” Mingi turns to him with a curious, but understanding expression. He guesses Mingi does understand him more than anyone else.

“Nope. I don’t… I don’t think I wanna tell them yet. I know they wouldn’t take it _that_ badly because they’re pretty open-minded, but I know it would change our relationship somehow, and I can’t deal with that yet.”

“Of course. Even if you didn’t ask me, I wouldn’t have even thought about it.”

“Thanks. Means a lot.”

“Hey,” Mingi says, and Wooyoung turns back to him. “Means a lot that you asked me to stay at your place. So thank you.”

Wooyoung turns back to the pavement, not wanting to acknowledge the moment. Sort of. He’s never been really good with these moments.

“Also, can I ask you something? You can like not answer me, I’m just curious.”

“What is it?”

“Did you ever have a thing with a guy? Back home?”

Wooyoung bites his bottom lip in his mouth. He’s… if he answers that…

“No,” he whispers, probably just enough for Mingi to hear. He doesn’t ask again, so he probably has. “I didn’t in college either,” the admission flows from his lips without him thinking about it. He determinedly doesn’t look at Mingi though—Mingi probably understood the underlying message behind it.

Wooyoung won’t ever admit it out loud though.

“Ah, Wooyoung...”

“You don’t have to say it,” he grits out. His cheeks are probably on fire, but he can chalk it down to the sudden cold from the night falling. A storefront to their left blasts a hype idol song, and Mingi audibly opens his mouth.

“Okay, okay. Just… yeah, okay.”

Wooyoung doesn’t look at him pretty much until they get home, and he sneaks just a glance before he opens his door. When they lock eyes, Mingi smiles.

Wooyoung keys the code in the door and opens it.

“Mom, dad, I’m home!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a comment if you enjoyed it, I’d love to hear your thoughts! <3 see you with the last chapter next Sunday!


	3. why don't you spend the night? i know you love me

“So, Mingi, Wooyoung only told us a couple of things about you,” his dad asks, and Wooyoung already wants to become one with the earth. He knows his parents have no way of knowing and Wooyoung explained some of the situation and that one of his friends needs a place to stay, and still, he didn’t expect how… awkward this would feel. “What do you study?”

“I study business.” So _that’s_ his major. “But I also do music on the side.”

“Really? What kind of music?”

“Just… some rap, hip-hop, these kinds of genres.”

Wooyoung can tell that Mingi has instantly gained the approval of his father with that, but he lowers his head, and Wooyoung almost wants to laugh. His dad listens to probably more hip-hop than Wooyoung, so…

“Really? You’ll have to show us some tracks then. We love hip-hop in this house.”

“I’d love to.”

Thankfully, his dad doesn’t do anything else embarrassing; Wooyoung considers that a miracle.

“So where did you two meet? Wooyoung tells us so little about his college friends that you’re our only in,” his mother complains, gaze pointed at Wooyoung, and Wooyoung drops his head on the table.

“Mom…”

“Shh, tell us Mingi,” his mother shuts him up quickly. “You’re going to bear with it, Wooyoung-ah, you never tell us anything.”

Mingi chuckles quietly. “Well, we’re in the same group of friends. One of our seniors introduced us, I think? And we’re both in KSA.”

“That’s the Korean Students Association, right?”

“Yes,” Mingi nods, peeking at Wooyoung. “I think it just so happened that most of our friends are Korean or Korean-American and we’re all in it. We just organize events, hang-out sessions, cultural showcases, a dance show, things like that.”

“That’s really cool of you. So you’re Korean, right?”

“Yes, I’m fully Korean,” Mingi nods.

“I figured you weren’t from America by how you speak. So where are you from?”

“Ah…” Mingi scratches his arm. Wooyoung wants to smack his head against the table again, but that would be rude. “I’m actually from Incheon.”

“But you came up from Gwangju, right?” his mom asks, and Wooyoung really wants to stop her.

“Yes. I don’t… live with my family, currently. I live with one of my friends.”

Well, fuck. Now his family’s gonna dig in.

“How come?” his mom continues.

“Mom… that’s rude,” Wooyoung comments, hopefully enough to stop it.

“No, it’s okay,” Mingi turns to Wooyoung for just a second, and then back to his mom. Wooyoung wants to _end himself_. If Mingi outs himself to his family, they’re surely going to think about Wooyoung. “We just had a disagreement about me going to school in the States, so it actually is really amazing to see how supportive you are of Wooyoung. He talks about his family all the time.”

“Does he? He should call us more often then,” his mother teases, but lovingly. Wooyoung’s mouth almost drops. Mingi didn’t even mention… that. “But that’s awful to hear. Did you get into university in Korea?”

“Yes, I did get into Yonsei,” Mingi smiles. “They would’ve preferred I went there, but it’s alright. We still keep in contact, I just have a job with my friend at his parents’ place in Gwangju so it just makes more sense.”

Damn, is Mingi good at this. Wooyoung looks at the way he talks, at the way he knows how to turn a story to make it make sense, so his parents don’t think he’s evading their answers and he’s being polite, and yet not lying… just hiding what he needs to hide.

A shiver passes through Wooyoung. He knew Mingi’s good at talking, but in this context…

“That’s great then. I always tell Wooyoung he should do some work during breaks, but he always refuses to listen,” his dad eyes him while collecting their plates.

“Dad you always tell me to sleep in and relax during breaks, don’t lie,” Wooyoung comments, watching Mingi jump up to help his mom take them to the kitchen.

Right when Mingi leaves, his dad turns to him. “He’s cool. Why don’t you tell us more about your friends at college? We only know about San, and so little.”

“I don’t know,” Wooyoung mumbles, picking up the rest of the dishes. He just isn’t… too great with talking about his life to his parents, maybe, no matter how much they ask. “I’ll make sure to tell you more from now on.”

“You should,” his dad ruffles his hair. “You know we’re proud of you.”

Even though it’s Thursday, his mom brings out Monopoly after dinner. His little brother gets visibly excited because that is his favorite game—Wooyoung is still of the opinion they’re ruining his childhood, but he also loves the game, so.

Plus… it will be fun to see Mingi play it with them.

From the first minutes, he notices Mingi being nicer than he should with his brother. Pointing it out when his brother _seemingly_ forgot to ask him for rent, skipping over buying a property because his brother has the other two…

Wooyoung holds back a snicker, because he doesn’t need to.

He understands quickly, it seems, when his mother and his brother start a cutthroat negotiation for one of the red properties his mother needs. His family’s played Monopoly for years, and the way they play is _well._

He surely understands when an hour or so later, he lands on one of his dad’s properties with two villas, while having no complete neighborhoods of his own. Two turns later, just before he is to reach them, Wooyoung turns the villas on the last two properties, the most expensive ones, into hotels. Mingi rolls a five, and lands smack dab on one of them.

“Hand it over,” he grins at Mingi, who puts his money into his hand, and does a quick run of his properties. Without reason; he’s bankrupt.

“How are you all so good at this?”

“We’ve been playing for years,” Wooyoung laughs. “Games between us get really intense, you’re just the newbie. Sorry…” Wooyoung stops just before the word slips from his mouth. “Anyway, thanks.”

“Thank you for indulging us, Mingi,” his mother laughs too, packing the game around. “I think it’s time for us to go to bed, since we have work and school tomorrow.”

“Thank you for letting me into your place,” Mingi bows. “I appreciate it.”

“Of course, you’re welcome any time,” his dad pats Mingi on the back. “There will always be a place for you in Seoul, if you need it.”

With the last greetings and good nights, Wooyoung pulls Mingi into his room.

And finally feels like he can breathe.

Locking the door behind him, he feels that tension that has been in him the whole night dissipate. He was _scared._ He was scared _shitless_ that something would happen, and one of them would slip. Wooyoung _almost_ did, almost called Mingi darling like he does to all of his friends.

With his parents, it would’ve hit differently though. Wooyoung can’t even imagine how.

“Hey… thank you,” he whispers to Mingi, coming closer. Mingi’s hands reach out to hold his arms, hold him up.

“For what?” he whispers back.

“For being careful,” Wooyoung admits, feeling sort of weak.

It got to him. Somehow, for some reason, it all got to him. He knew Mingi is smart and considerate, and he would never do anything to risk it, to hurt him or disrespect him, especially after today’s conversation. It’s just… to see just how well he took to his family—Wooyoung feels many ways about it.

He never brought anyone home. No friends, no anything; not even after the end of middle school, after his parents’ situation got better, when he finally had his own room and his parents didn’t live in the living room anymore… nobody.

So he can admit to himself just now how _terrified_ he was to bring home the only person he’s ever had some sort of something with now, the only one who _knew_ and actually could have messed him up. But didn’t.

“Wanna play a game or something? We just should be sorta not loud.” Wooyoung asks. “Not really in a sleepy mood.”

“Me neither. I’d love to.”

Wooyoung knows Mingi isn’t a gaming person, and Wooyoung isn’t much of one either, but he brings out Mario Kart while Mingi changes in the bathroom. He takes his turn after, and when he comes back, he sits back with Mingi on his bed. The air mattress his mom’s made for Mingi sits at the foot of it, untouched.

Wooyoung turns the lights mostly off, leaving just the lamp he keeps to the side of his bed. The volume to the game stays low; Wooyoung doesn’t share a wall with his parents or his little brother’s room, only the bathroom, and the walls are pretty thick, but even so, he doesn’t want to wake them up.

Mingi hasn’t played Mario Kart before; Wooyoung wishes he could say he was good, but he isn’t. He _sucks_ , plain and simple, and it’s not even the difficult maps that they’re doing. Wooyoung finds himself laughing at him more often than not, elbowing him for how terrible he is. It means Wooyoung doesn’t even have to focus, can just lay back on the bed and play casually.

Not being focused though… it makes room for other things. For rethinking their day: the clothes bag at the end of his bed, the massive keychain attached to his wallet, Mingi’s story and all the shit that he’s gone through that Wooyoung could have never expected.

_If you’d ever wanna meet my parents…_

Mingi met his, and they loved him. Wooyoung could tell, because they would never beat around the bush if they didn’t; would’ve never brought out a game if they didn’t; would’ve never asked more about him if they didn’t. Mingi fit awfully well into all of it, and Wooyoung…

Wooyoung feels a thread of something rise up his chest, something that chokes the air coming out of his throat. He falls off the edge of the track. He doesn’t know… what he wants, but all of a sudden he wants.

He _wants._

“Mingi…”

“Mmm?” Mingi murmurs from next to him, turning his head. Wooyoung takes the controller out of his hand and throws it somewhere on his bed. Throwing his thigh over Mingi’s, falling into his lap, is as familiar as breathing. His lips meeting Mingi’s, the hands finding a home on his waist without any protest… just as much.

“Woo… are you sure?” Mingi whispers, resting his forehead on Wooyoung’s, his breath just on the side of laboured.

“Yeah. Yeah, I want you,” he tugs at Mingi’s shirt with a desperation coming from somewhere deeper than he wants to think about. “We just gotta be quiet.”

“Yeah,” Mingi whispers back, biting his lip into his mouth before he steals another breathy kiss. Wooyoung can hear it despite the game playing in the background, abandoned, and he loses himself in it, consequences be damned.

The remote on the nightstand turns the TV off. Wooyoung carefully puts it down back where it came from and lets Mingi kiss a trail down his Adam’s apple, his own hands fisted in Mingi’s pyjama shirt.

Hearing only their breaths in the absolute silence, in the low light, is an erotic experience in itself. Wooyoung is used to letting go, fitting his schedule so Yunho isn’t in Mingi’s dorm so he can cry out all he wants, let go as much as he wants.

But now, the constant awareness of where they are pressing down like a weight on his shoulders makes everything a thousand times hotter. Wooyoung is aware of every little noise their mouths make, their tongues when they tangle together, every swish of fabric, the movement of the bed when he shifts his knees to grind up in Mingi’s lap.

When he tears away to pull Mingi’s shirt over his head, let Mingi do the same to his, he does it carefully, savoring the moment their chests press together and they’re kissing, again, Mingi’s hands low on his hips to guide the slow rolls Wooyoung makes in his lap. Wooyoung fists hands in Mingi’s hair and presses up against the hardness of Mingi’s stomach, letting Mingi roll him down against the bulge in his pants, the movement dislodging him up.

Mingi buries words in his collarbone Wooyoung doesn’t hear, but he feels the vibrations traveling down his stomach anyway, giggles of his own buried in Mingi’s temple. _It tickles_ , and when it goes away and Mingi’s lips are left, with the little drag of his teeth, Wooyoung exhales a hard breath and feels it _burn_ on the way up.

“Please…” the word leaves his mouth, and maybe Mingi doesn’t hear. Maybe it’s better if he doesn’t, if he can’t hear the desperation so unlike Wooyoung that it left him with.

Maybe he does, by the way his arms wrap around Wooyoung and suddenly, Wooyoung gets moved up. He gets it, wrapping his own around Mingi’s neck and letting Mingi turn them around. Instead of throwing him down on the mattress though, like he usually might, Mingi moves oh so slowly, so they don’t make any noise. Wooyoung puts an elbow behind himself and pulls Mingi down into him, moving them on the bed so they’re comfortable. As silent as he can, he pulls him in for another deep kiss, slow and intense, praying the wet sounds aren’t audible when they pull away and their tongues tangle for just one more time.

“Are you sure?” Mingi asks next to his ear, more an exhale than words strung together, and Wooyoung nods.

“Yeah,” he nods and reaches to the right, to the bottom shelf where he keeps his stuff. Coming up with the small bottle of lube he holds there, he puts it next to him on the bed and turns back to Mingi to whisper in his ear.

“Uhm… I don’t have condoms. Are you… Have you slept with anyone else recently?”

Mingi’s mouth drops, but he shakes his head. “No. Not since getting tested for sure.”

“Me neither. Can we just… do it?”

“Are you _really_ sure?” Mingi pauses, looking insistently down at him.

“Yeah. Just pull out or something.”

There’s a tremble in his chest when it starts becoming real; when Mingi preps him like he always does when he gets the chance to, which is way too often recently. Careful, thorough, making Wooyoung feel like he could come just from this. Living on the edge of something, with that perpetual ache of something under his skin, and yet never enough to get close to it and take the plunge.

Mingi always wants to take the pleasure of doing that all for himself.

Wooyoung waits when he slips his fingers out, waits for that overwhelming stretch to hit him like he always does, eyes closed so he can enjoy it to the fullest, focus on nothing but that. Except… this time Mingi doesn’t let him.

A thumb drags over his bottom lip; Wooyoung pushes it along with his tongue, sucking it into his mouth—his eyes open, like Mingi wants, and Mingi’s looking at him like…

Try all he could, he doesn’t think he can describe it. That look in his eyes as his hand drags along Wooyoung’s body, a slow trek from fingers along his jaw and digging into the space between his shoulder and his collarbone, to his hand sprawled over his chest, over his navel. Mingi bites his tongue between his teeth, following the path his hand makes with his eyes until he reaches Wooyoung’s hand. Caresses a finger around where Wooyoung’s gripping the sheets, on that edge of expectation, just to turn it around and let their hands tangle together.

 _Let me have this_.

Wooyoung does, and maybe in return, he finally gets Mingi pushing into him. This time, Wooyoung keeps his eyes open. And stares right into Mingi’s.

For every inch, every little thread of the feeling that lights Wooyoung’s skin on fire, sings fire in his blood and travels it through his body to obliterate everything else. Everything but the feeling of Mingi dropping down on his elbow, lips inches away from his, eyes staring right at Wooyoung’s open mouth as he takes it.

Mingi bottoms out, and with the slowest thrusts, starts fucking into him, _finally_ … and goddamn, Wooyoung didn’t know it would feel like _this_. Raw, sensitive, and he knows it’s not just because of the condom, or lack thereof—it’s because of Mingi’s eyes staring into him in complete silence, the full awareness of where they are, and what Wooyoung is doing.

Getting wrecked on his bed, meters away from the rest of his family, and he couldn’t care _less_ because the pleasure building in him is like nothing he’s ever felt.

Mingi pulls out and slowly, slowly pushes back in, and Wooyoung…

Wooyoung makes a sound.

Barely audible, this small moan that could be pain or pleasure both, but his eyes widen right away, and so do Mingi’s.

One second later, Mingi’s hand pulls out from his and comes to cover his mouth completely, sideways. Wooyoung gasps at the quick gesture, but no noise comes out.

His hand comes to wrap around Mingi’s wrist, keeping him there, giving him the go-ahead to keep going, fuck him again. Mingi does, as painstakingly slow as before, careful for the lube to not make any noise. And there is none, none but a slight swish of the sheets as Mingi pushes into him, the hard but silent breaths he lets out.

It’s obvious he’s holding back; his hand on Wooyoung tightens and his eyes narrow and scrunch in obvious tension, but that’s fine, because to be fair, Wooyoung’s been on edge since the moment he sat in Mingi’s lap and realized how badly he’s wanted this for the past weeks.

 _It’s fine if_ —he wants to say, but his words just get muffled under Mingi’s hand, so he can do nothing but sit there. One hand wrapped around Mingi’s wrist, one digging marks in Mingi’s shoulder, eyes locked together as Mingi thrusts into him over and over.

It’s so unexpectedly slow. So… so _intense,_ something that makes his legs tense around Mingi’s waist with every push that leaves him open and rough, all poured on and melting on sheets he’s slept on thousands of times before, and yet have never seen this.

Like a first time in so many ways, Mingi can’t stop looking at him, and Wooyoung can’t close his eyes to not look back.

 _“Woo…”_ a small whisper escapes Mingi, one Wooyoung wouldn’t have caught if he hadn’t seen the shape of Mingi’s mouth make it so many times over, and Wooyoung nods. _It’s fine_ , it’s fine, _I’m so close too…_

But Mingi just keeps going, determined for something, it seems. Wooyoung doesn’t know what, but his hand tightens on Mingi’s wrist and his lips press together into his hand when Mingi gets to be _too much_ , and yet it’s not enough to come. Wooyoung wants more, wants Mingi to fuck him into next century, turn him around and drag him up by the hips and slam into him until Wooyoung doesn’t know his own name.

But he can’t get that. Not now. Now, he gets tears forming at the corner of his eyes, and for what goddamn reason, and maybe it doesn’t feel solely necessary for Mingi’s hand to press over his mouth anymore, but Wooyoung knows that if he lets go, he’s going to cry out with pleasure because _damn_ is it a lot, and it _hurts._

Hurts _so good._ Hurts like a fire that burns everything to give way to something new, maybe, and Mingi keeps going, and Wooyoung doesn’t know how much more he can take before he breaks.

 _Please,_ Wooyoung begs, and it comes off as a vibration under Mingi’s hand; a tear slips from his left eye, falling down his temple and into the pillow.

Mingi’s jaw drops. Wooyoung sees it, when he can’t take it anymore, feels when Mingi pulls out, still painstakingly slow, and comes all over himself, come shooting on his own stomach, dripping down his hand and onto Wooyoung’s stomach.

Completely silent. No noise whatsoever, and Wooyoung feels the glaring emptiness. Another tear falls out of his eyes. Mingi’s hand lets go, and Wooyoung _breathes._

Mingi doesn’t spare a second to move back down, kissing quiet marks on Wooyoung’s stomach, over his hip bone, taking his cock in his mouth with practiced ease. At the smallest hint of warmth on his oversensitive cock, Wooyoung lets out a whispered whine, and gets two of Mingi’s fingers pressing into his open mouth as a consequence.

_Fuck._

His lips close around them because he knows he’ll need it, but also because Mingi thrusts them into his mouth at the same time he moves his mouth on Wooyoung, at first, before he loses rhythm and lets them hang there, pressing heavy on Wooyoung’s tongue as Mingi takes him all the way to the base.

Wooyoung’s back arches in a tremble, unwillingly getting himself deeper into Mingi’s mouth, but Mingi doesn’t hold his hips, just _takes it_ , takes it all and Wooyoung is already so desperately on the edge of a cliff that feels tall and by all means, _terrifying._

He falls anyway. With Mingi’s eyes looking up into his and his lips stretched around Wooyoung’s cock, taking it like it’s all he wants to do, his fingers curling into Wooyoung’s tongue. Wooyoung lets go.

When he does, the orgasm hits him harder than anything he’s ever felt, shuddering on his bed, and his mouth opens in a silent scream. His hands fist in Mingi’s hair, to keep him there, keep his warmth where Wooyoung needs it most as he comes down his throat, and Mingi doesn’t make the smallest sound. Just sits there and takes it, takes it all, and god _damn_ Wooyoung has never felt this when he’s come, but this warmth spreads from his chest all the way to the tips of his fingers, right where he’s holding onto Mingi, and he can’t let go.

Can’t, until Mingi pulls up, tongue lolling out of his mouth, breathing quick as he moves back up over his body, hanging over Wooyoung. Wooyoung pulls him down to kiss him and tastes himself on Mingi’s tongue when they tangle, wet and yet without making any noise.

Mingi lowers himself down on him, and Wooyoung can’t imagine how bad his back must hurt after all of that. So he pulls Mingi on his side instead, to swing a naked leg over him as he presses his lips on his. Like that night, Mingi’s hand reaches to caress his thigh, except he’s naked this time, and his body hasn’t lost the feeling of Mingi in him.

They kiss for what feels like hours, and maybe probably is. He doesn’t wanna check his phone, doesn’t feel the need to even as Mingi’s lips pull from his for one last time, laying on the pillow under him, his breathing quick next to Wooyoung’s ear.

They actually managed. To not make any noise.

The state of the bed though…

“Mingi, fuck,” Wooyoung giggles, low and breathy, as he sees the mess they’ve made. Mingi looks down and muffles his own laugh in his hand. “Wait, I have an idea. Let’s get dressed first.”

Well, they’re probably going to need a shower too, after that. Wooyoung just now realizes how sweaty he is, droplets of it dripping from his thigh into his inner knee, down his arms and his neck.

When they’re decent, Wooyoung picks up the half-empty bottle of coke he left at the side of his bed yesterday, and pours it on the sheets, right where most of the mess is. He strips the sheets one second after, and the mattress pad, hoping it didn’t get past that, taking them to the bathroom and shoving them in the laundry basket so the coke doesn’t stain anything else.

Well, he’d rather have his mom flipping on him for staining the mattress or some other stuff rather than her suspecting he had sex with Mingi under her own roof.

Mingi helps him put new sheets on the bed, and after cleaning up, goes to the air mattress at the foot of the bed.

“You’re not serious,” Wooyoung whispers to him and tugs on his wrist. “Come on.”

Mingi thankfully doesn’t fight it (Wooyoung didn’t expect he would), and he falls into bed with Wooyoung. It’s almost natural, how easy they curl into each other, but Wooyoung is too tired to panic over that.

He’ll do the necessary freaking out in the morning. Until then, he makes sure his door is locked, gets back into bed, curls into Mingi’s arm, and maybe takes one more half-hour to kiss him, slow and completely without a goal. His lips sliding over Mingi, Mingi’s hands around his back, Wooyoung’s hand tight over his waist—that’s the last thing he remembers before he falls asleep.

It’s a low murmur that rouses Wooyoung from his sleep—a mumble next to his ear, something unintelligible. His curtains block the light, but from the top of them, Wooyoung can see the sun has almost risen; almost, but not quite.

Mingi’s arm around his waist curls on the bed, his hand tucked tight between Wooyoung and the mattress, caging him in.

He feels warm, both from the heat in the bedroom and the forehead resting on the back of his head; Wooyoung’s own arm is resting on Mingi’s, fingers draped around the upper part of his forearm, near his wrist. Their legs are tangled in some way Wooyoung can’t even start to figure out.

He takes a look at his phone with his free hand. 7:23—his parents are leaving soon. Wooyoung should get up.

Easier said than done, though. Untangling himself from Mingi is a gargantuan effort, not helped by how much he just wants to go back to sleep, tuck himself back into Mingi and just drift into unconsciousness for a couple more hours.

But he should. The air mattress at the foot of the bed is undisturbed, and he should go and make sure the laundry won’t be messed with.

With a yawn and a stumble to his step, he gets up from his bed and into the air mattress, messing up the pillow, pulling at the sheets and at the cover, enough so it looks slept in.

Right when he gets up, two barely-there knocks ring on his door. He knows it’s his mom; they don’t look to have been loud enough to wake Mingi up, so Wooyoung makes a show from getting up from the air mattress, feeling how it deflated, hoping it makes enough noise. Maybe he can make a good excuse for this.

He unlocks and opens the door slowly, shushing his mom with a finger to his lips. His mom peeks at Mingi in the bed and opens her mouth in surprise since he’s still sleeping, tiptoeing away until Wooyoung softly closes the door behind him.

“Did you switch beds?” his mom asks when they get to the kitchen, and Wooyoung nods.

“Yeah. Mingi has back issues, and I remembered our air mattress deflates. We need a new one, my back hurts like _hell,_ ” Wooyoung complains. Well, his back _does_ hurt, just for a different reason.

“Feel free to throw it away when you pack it up then. We’ll get a new one,” his mom pats him on the shoulder. “Also, clean around a little today when Mingi leaves. At least clean your room.”

“Will do.”

“And do the laundry. I saw your sheets in there too, and I put ours in as well. Take your brother’s too.”

Wooyoung breathes a quick sign of surprise; he hopes his mom hadn’t looked at them too closely.

“Yeah, I changed them last night. I spilled coke on us while we were playing games.”

“I thought I heard some music for a second. Be more careful, Wooyoung-ah. Did it get on the mattress?”

Wooyoung takes another deep breath, and hopes she didn’t hear anything more. God _damn_ , is this hard.

“No, I think the sheets and the mattress pad caught all of it.”

“Good. Wash them on 50 degrees, and be more careful when you play games,” his mom nags, and Wooyoung resists the urge to roll his eyes. His father appears, followed by his little brother, and Wooyoung cannot wait for them to leave, as bad as that sounds. “There’s breakfast in the fridge. Give something to Mingi before he leaves, okay? Say sorry we couldn’t see him away.”

He needs _sleep_.

“Will do. Take care at work. And at the hagwon, okay? Don’t give them trouble.” he ruffles his brother’s head, laughs at the happy giggles that he receives in return.

They do leave when the clock hits 7:30; a little bit later, actually, because they’re never on time. When the front door closes behind them, Wooyoung sighs. He patters to his room, suddenly exhausted, and when the door closes he locks it behind him again, and gets back into bed. Since he left, Mingi’s turned on his back, starfished on his bed. Wooyoung throws an arm around his waist and a leg over both of his, and puts his head on his arm.

Mingi stirs and mumbles, but not enough to wake up. Wooyoung closes his eyes, and drifts off into sleep.

When he wakes up again, something tickles his temple as he shakes and opens his eyes. Wooyoung’s breathing into Mingi’s arm, but if he moves, his lips almost press into his neck, Mingi’s head above his. He’s hugging Wooyoung like he would a pillow, Wooyoung realizes, and Wooyoung suddenly feels the pain in his lower back, and how he needs to move.

This time, when he tries to untangle from Mingi, he doesn’t stay asleep. He can tell Mingi’s awake by the conscious way he pulls Wooyoung tighter into him, a conscious effort of not letting go.

“Mingi…” Wooyoung whispers. Mingi answers with a sleepy groan. “We should move. It’s late.”

“What time is it?”

“Like…” Wooyoung turns around to check his phone, and Mingi lets go of him with one hand. “Like 9 something.”

“I’m meeting my brother at 1:30.”

“Mmm,” Wooyoung nods and turns back around. He’s still sleepy as hell, but he doesn’t think he’ll fall asleep again. But the bed is warm and comfortable, and maybe he’s just kind of enjoying himself right now.

With his eyes open, he can see when Mingi yawns above him and opens his own, looking down at Wooyoung with a blank stare. His lidded eyes are sleepy, but nonetheless… Wooyoung wrenches a hand between them and pulls Mingi’s chin down so Wooyoung can press up and seal their lips together.

Slow, calm, like the sliver of the morning that’s peeking through Wooyoung’s curtains even as his room is mostly dark. Mingi breathes into the kiss, morning breath be damned, and pulls Wooyoung to the side until he’s straddling Mingi, still pressed to his chest, Mingi’s arms still wrapped around his waist. The little display of strength, calm as it is, makes Wooyoung moan in Mingi’s mouth.

“Are you down for it?” Wooyoung pulls away to ask Mingi, low next to his ear.

“Do you have to ask?”

With his apartment empty, Wooyoung doesn’t have to hold back as much when Mingi presses two fingers up in him. The moan he buries in Mingi’s neck, hands gripping the pillow next to his head rings calm throughout the entire room. Still kind of loose from last night, Wooyoung takes them easy, slow grinds on them that his still sleepy brain can’t process.

Lost in the physicality of it all, Wooyoung likes this most—when his brain takes a break and he can just _feel._

Mingi adds one more finger and takes his time stretching Wooyoung open, pressing them as deep as he can. Wooyoung’s hips run slow circles, hungry for the feeling.

“One more,” he whispers in Mingi’s ear, knowing he just wants to _feel._

“You sure?”

“Mhm,” Wooyoung exhales, pausing when Mingi adds more lube and gives him what he wants. When he presses in all the way, Wooyoung lets out a giggle in his neck and grinds down further. He could be convinced of the merits of morning sex, perhaps, when they involve the stretch of Mingi’s fingers in him.

It’s Wooyoung who gets up, one hand on Mingi’s chest, and slides down on him, taking him inch by inch. Excruciatingly slow, eyes closed and head thrown back, Wooyoung’s veins sing with the feeling of Mingi filling him up little by little. Wooyoung bites his lip in his mouth and lets the stretch settle in as he rolls his hips on Mingi, as slow as he can go.

It never really goes away with Mingi, that feeling of being pushed to the limit, physically and mentally; his hands grasp Wooyoung’s thighs tensing to hold himself up, fingers teasing the end of his shirt as slowly as Wooyoung moves. They feel present pressing into his skin like they do, heavy, just one more point of contact that holds Wooyoung down and anchors him to the ground so he doesn’t get lost in the feeling.

The silence, barely broken by a hard breath or a whisper of Wooyoung’s name, wraps around Wooyoung, heavy and pointed. Wooyoung doesn’t dare open his eyes because he doesn’t want to ruin the almost out-of-his-body pleasure as he slowly moves up and down on Mingi and takes his cock pressing as deep inside him as he can take it.

Joined by Mingi’s hands trickling up his waist, over his ribs… Wooyoung shudders—

and yelps as all of a sudden, Mingi pulls him down to press on his chest. The sudden action makes Wooyoung moan, lips bumping into Mingi’s jaw, but Mingi doesn’t quicken the pace—just follows Wooyoung’s with hands now on his ass, holding him right where he wants him to press nice and slow up into him.

 _Fuck_.

When he’s on the other side of the story, when he’s the one being teased, it feels just _that_ much more maddening, the agonizingly slow pace. The tension builds in Wooyoung’s chest and presses through his body as he tightens around Mingi, harder breaths muffled on Mingi’s neck.

From above him, Mingi twists his head and bends his neck to take Wooyoung’s lips in his. Lets Wooyoung lead—build the slow pace just as he likes it, fitting with the slowness of his thoughts as he enjoys the slide of their lips together, the slow presses up into his body.

He’s _satisfied._ No better word to describe it as he gets up again, folds his knees under himself and presses his hands on Mingi’s collarbones, rolling his hips up and down his thighs. Comfortable with the weight inside him, the hands on him, the ghost of a kiss on his lips and bite to his tongue as the little bit of light illuminates Mingi’s messy hair and swollen lips.

Wooyoung looks right down at him, like Mingi did last night. Wordless, lost in how they’re connected.

He wishes he had better words for the situation to put his thoughts together and add them on top of each other, but they fly away with every slow thrust of Mingi’s hips up in him as Wooyoung drops down. They’ve never needed words, not really, not in the moment, and Wooyoung has never been more thankful for it.

Because he doesn’t think he wants to put a word to the shiver that passes through him when Mingi bites his lip into his mouth and scrunches his eyes closed.

“Woo… I’m close,” he opens his eyes to whisper, hands tightening on Wooyoung’s hips, and the wildest thought passes through Wooyoung. Of… everything he wants Mingi to do to him in other circumstances, maybe, to put it like that.

He wants… he doesn’t move, tightening around Mingi, drinking in the pained moan that falls from his mouth with his own. Wooyoung’s close too, he’s so close, has been for a while, so he gets a hand around himself and whines in Mingi’s mouth as he does.

“Are you gonna—” Mingi asks, tense, on the edge of snapping—Wooyoung can tell.

“I’m fine, you can just… wanna try it,” Wooyoung whispers in return, low and hesitant. He doesn’t wanna _say it_.

Thankfully, Mingi gets it, hands holding on to his lower back all of a sudden, taking back some of the control of his movements. “You want me to come in you?”

_“Mingi.”_

“Say it.”

“Fuck you, _ah…_ come on, just…” Wooyoung complains, _so_ close too… Mingi is so unfair, this is all really unfair. “Yes, I want you to. Come in me, mark me up, _come on.”_

“Kiss me,” Mingi begs on an exhale, and unthinkingly, Wooyoung turns his head and takes his lips into his, quicker than the maddeningly slow pace they’re holding up. One of Mingi’s arms twists around Wooyoung’s back, holding him close as he presses _up, up,_ as deep as he can—Wooyoung lets go of himself and wraps both hands in Mingi’s shirt, tugging him closer, inhaling the vibrations from his throat as Mingi holds him where he wants, presses up once more and _stays._

Wooyoung gasps when he feels him, feels when Mingi lets go and _comes._ In him.

“Fuck, Mingi…” Wooyoung gasps at the feeling, so strange and yet so, _so_ _good_ , tearing away from Mingi’s lips just to press back, shaking in his grip.

Mingi moans when Wooyoung accidentally tightens around him, back arching in his grip as the pleasure builds in him without Mingi even touching him. Mingi thrusting up inside him, through the mess, his cock trapped between his stomach and Mingi’s… Wooyoung _loses_ it, and loses it _bad,_ shivering in Mingi’s grip as he comes between their stomachs with a hard moan and a scream muffled in Mingi’s mouth.

The pleasure obliterates everything, sight or sound, as he lets go. Red-hot fire through him, traveling from his stomach and out, to the tips of his fingers, until he’s let go of all the weight and dropped on Mingi, mouth pressing into the juncture of his neck and shoulder. Mingi runs a hand up and down his back, comforting, as Wooyoung breathes out the last of his pleasure and tries to gain awareness back in his limbs.

_“Damn.”_

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine, just… ah, it’s a lot.”

“In a good way?”

“You can’t tell?” Wooyoung tries the snark, and finds out it works, even as his limbs feel like jelly and his brain feels like it has completely left the building.

“Kinda can.”

His shirt feels sticky where he came over it, and he bets Mingi must feel the same. And then… he realizes.

This started off so soft and wholesome. Now, Wooyoung untangles himself from Mingi’s arms and lays back, feels Mingi move inside him and hears him let off a whine as Wooyoung moves up… Mingi’s cock slipping out of him, and come dripping out on his thigh.

Gosh, he feels _filthy._

Mingi doesn’t seem to care by the moan he lets out when he sees, his eyes fixed on it. Of course… Wooyoung wouldn’t have expected otherwise.

“I can’t believe I let you do this on my childhood bed. It’s all ruined now.” Well, not really his childhood bed, but the emotion holds nonetheless.

“You asked for it,” Mingi reminds him, but his voice doesn’t really hold any sort of bite as he moves his hands comfortingly up and down Wooyoung’s thighs, staring at where he’s essentially marked his territory. Ugh.

“I did, so?” Wooyoung throws back, lip bitten in his mouth as Mingi’s come drips out of him and on the sheets. Damn, he’s going to need to wash these ones too.

“I…” Mingi asks, hesitant. “Can I kiss you?”

Wooyoung indulges him with a roll of his eyes, Mingi’s kiss slow and thorough. Hot, intense, hands on Wooyoung like he still doesn’t want to let go. Even after all of that.

It’s Wooyoung who pulls away, wincing at the feeling. “Enough. Let’s go shower.”

“Can I join you?” Mingi smirks, and Wooyoung raises an eyebrow.

“I’d like to see you try. My shower’s hella small, and we’re not going to my parents’ room.”

“I’m sure we can make it work.”

Wooyoung twirls on his chair at 10 PM in the evening that same night, bouncing his phone on the arm of it; there’s an itch under his skin, to go out and do something, go somewhere. Usually he’d solve that by either joining his friends for a party, or by going to Mingi’s room, but both of those…

He can’t believe he’s this needy, even after last night and this morning. If he stretches in his chair, he can still feel the ache from where Mingi held him, fucked him; he shouldn’t be like this. He has literally no reason to.

And yet, knees to his chest in his chair, he can’t help but open his messages. The shirt he bought with Mingi falls to the left when he unbuttons one button, and the next. Enough to pull it to the left, and reveal the hickey Mingi left on him this morning, red and angry on his chest.

 _‘Was this necessary?’_ he snaps the pic and sends it to Mingi before he can even think twice.

Mingi takes a while to answer. Enough for Wooyoung to say fuck it, change out of his clothes and shower, getting ready for bed. He guesses he’ll play a game if he has nothing else to do.

Right when he turns it on, he gets a new text, and he picks up his phone.

 _ **‘Kinda was’** , _Mingi’s replied, with a selfie of him covering his mouth. He’s in a blue, dark light, and if Wooyoung looks closely, he can see bottles behind him.

_‘Wait, are you in a club?’_

_**‘Haha, sort of. I’m in a bar’**_ he texts, and one second after, a different photo appears on his screen. It’s one of him and Yunho, in the same place; Yunho has his hair swept back and rings on his fingers, and Wooyoung sees the bar at his left side and the bottles behind him.

Another photo comes, of a crowd of people in front, in the dark under multicolored lights. _**‘That’s the job I told you about. Yunho’s parents own a couple of bars and clubs in Gwangju. Yunho and I work here during breaks’**_

Fuck, that’s _so cool._ Mentally, Wooyoung is already there with a tall glass of something cold in his hand, laying on the bar next to the air conditioner, chatting with Yunho and Mingi behind it as they sneak him free drinks.

He would give a leg and an arm to be there right now. He’d even _pay_ for the drinks.

_‘I envy you so bad’_

_**‘You should come visit sometime. Yunho says hi’** _

Wooyoung is surprised by how… unmoved that sentence leaves him. He would have expected to freak out or something at the admission that him and Mingi clearly hang out and Yunho knows, but…

Mingi came up to stay at his place for an entire two days. Of course Yunho knows. Probably too much.

Some tendril of fear runs through Wooyoung. Suddenly, he thinks it would be better to just leave this, before… it goes somewhere else.

He shoots Mingi one last text though, because it doesn’t feel right, just leaving off like that.

_‘Maybe sometime’_

He wants to ignore Mingi for the rest of the break. He does. It would certainly be better if he could.

For some reason, he doesn’t. Their text conversations, no matter how brief and stilted sometimes, extend until the end of the break.

All the way until they get back to campus, and for the third semester in a row, Wooyoung ends up in Mingi’s room, Mingi’s dick deep inside him and Mingi’s lips on his. When Mingi pulled a condom from the drawer, Wooyoung almost asked him not to.

A mess, that’s what it is. After a couple more weeks of nothing but his hand and a dildo he impulse bought at a sex store far away from his house, Wooyoung comes twice and falls boneless on Mingi’s bed. He’s bought a double bed for his room, it seems, because Wooyoung falls back and there’s space on his other side.

He doesn’t feel inclined to move. When Mingi comes back with wet tissues, Wooyoung takes them from him and cleans up, picking up his underwear and hoodie from the end of the bed and putting them on. And then slams down on Mingi’s bed again, starfished, until Mingi lays down next to him and Wooyoung pulls his hand back to himself.

“I wanted to ask you something,” Wooyoung remembers.

“What’s up?”

“You mentioned working a couple of jobs. I thought you only worked at the music library though?”

“Ah yeah, I work at a convenience store on the other end of campus. It’s 6 PM to 2 AM three nights a week, so it isn’t that bad.”

“Oh. I didn’t know, I thought you only had that library one.”

“I mean,” Mingi shrugs, “Yunho knows, but I haven’t really told anyone else.”

“Why? I think it’s cool.”

“Yeah. I don’t know.” His expression is neutral; Wooyoung can’t read anything into it when he looks to the left. “I don’t think it’s shameful or anything, just... yeah.”

Wooyoung thinks it’s _really cool._ He’s on a scholarship and he works hard for it, but he still sometimes takes pocket money from his parents when he doesn’t have enough left over.

“Well, it’s not,” Wooyoung declares. “It’s fucking awesome. When do you work?”

“Uh… I worked Mondays, Wednesdays, and Sundays last semester. This semester, I don’t know yet.”

“Oh, that’s so funny. That’s when I...” he trails off. “That’s when I had class or practice.” His voice drops. “Was that a coincidence?”

“Uhm, no. I… switched the days around.”

Mingi _switched them around._ Mingi _fit his work schedule to Wooyoung’s classes and practice._ So that he would be free. For whenever Wooyoung was free.

“You’re… for real?”

“Yeah. I could, so I asked my boss if it was okay,” Mingi’s head turns to the right to look into Wooyoung’s eyes, his teeth pulling slightly at his bottom lip.

Wooyoung looks at him for just a second—

And then places a hand on the back of his neck, pulling Mingi in to kiss him, smoothly moving to straddle him. Mingi lets out a surprised noise into the impromptu kiss, and Wooyoung does it with all the intensity he can muster. Mingi’s hands come up to hold his waist, and Wooyoung arches his back into him.

“Can I borrow this?” Wooyoung holds up a grey blazer, strings at both sides, at the sleeves, at the pockets, at the collar latched through holes holding it together, untied and falling over in some places. Wooyoung saw it on Mingi a couple of times last semester, and couldn’t forget it. He thinks it would work well with his now blonde-gray hair.

“Uhm, sure. Why?”

“I like it.”

Even if Mingi’s eyes look hooded when Wooyoung throws it over his shirt, Wooyoung smirks and doesn’t say anything.

_‘Sorry y’all, don’t think I can make it to the party tonight. Gotta work, but hope y’all have fun’_

Wooyoung sees Mingi’s text in their group chat and puts his phone down back on the bed, back to typing on his laptop.

From the bed next to his, San makes a _tsk_ noise. “Are you disappointed?”

“Why would I be?” Wooyoung answers without skipping a beat.

“Don’t know. Just asking.”

When Wooyoung steps into the party, he hugs Hongjoong first, and then immediately bounds off to Yeosang when he makes a _come hither_ motion. He’s missed him, and didn’t get to see him since they’ve come back a week or so ago. He’ll definitely miss having Yeosang in the same math class as him; he really hadn’t spent enough quality time with him last semester, certainly took their almost daily proximity for granted.

“Hey… when you have a second, can I talk to you?” Yeosang hesitantly asks, like it’s taken him months of effort to even dare ask that to Wooyoung. Yeosang is never really like this with him, so it must be a big deal.

“I have one now,” he shouts back, and lets Yeosang take him to the back of the room. Wooyoung’s been here enough to know there’s a couch in the back, where the music is still loud, but not deafening.

“What’s up?”

“Uhm… I wanted to ask your help with something. I know this might be all of a sudden, but…” Yeosang drops his eyes, taking in a deep breath.

“But?” Wooyoung prods but gently, waiting for Yeosang to be comfortable.

“I’m interested in someone, and… I know you’re pretty close friends with him, and wanted to ask for advice on how I should ask him out.”

“You’re asking me?” Wooyoung laughs at first, because there are at least 6 better people Yeosang could ever ask. “I have no clue how things like that go.”

“Haven’t you been with someone for like a couple months now?” Yeosang’s eyebrows raise.

“What? Where did you get that from?” his eyes bulge out of his head, a laugh slipping out of him.

“I mean, everyone kinda knows. Nobody wanted to say it cause they didn’t wanna be rude since you wanted to keep it to yourself clearly, but we thought… you know, since you kinda…”

_Oh, fuck no._

“I haven’t been dating anyone, Yeosang-ah. For real.”

“Really?” Yeosang’s look is by all means skeptical.

_Keep it cool, Wooyoung. Keep it cool. Laugh, and play it cool._

“Yeah. But that doesn’t matter. Who is it, tell me?”

Yeosang immediately turns back into himself, swiping a hand through his hair. “You’re gonna laugh at me.”

“You know I won’t. Is he in our friend group?”

“... yeah.”

Well. Yunho and San are presumably out, since they’re dating, and Yeosang wouldn’t do that unless he knew they’d both be into it.

“Jongho?”

Yeosang shakes his head.

“Seonghwa-hyung?”

Also a shake. Interesting.

Now Wooyoung has to ask. “... Mingi?” His body tenses, without Wooyoung even knowing why, and… he prays he likes the answer.

He exhales a hard breath when Yeosang shakes his head no. _Fuck_. Why did that get to him so bad?

 _Play it cool, Wooyoung._ “Wait… Hongjoong-hyung?”

This time, Yeosang slowly nods his head, and Wooyoung slaps a hand over his mouth so he doesn’t cackle too hard. “You’re for real? _Hongjoong-hyung?”_

“I told you you’d laugh,” Yeosang raises an eyebrow.

“No, no,” Wooyoung puts his hands in front of him to pacify Yeosang. “I’m not laughing at you, I’m just surprised. I don’t think I’ve seen you talk to hyung directly like… more than once.”

“I have. We had a class together last semester.”

Oh shit, that’s true. Damn, Wooyoung must’ve really been blind, he forgot.

“Hmm, did you talk in it?”

“... not much.”

Wooyoung barely holds back another cackle, because wow. Yeosang and Hongjoong have to be the world’s most two awkward people, and put together…

“Anyway, this was helpful. I’m leaving,” Yeosang announces, and Wooyoung pulls at his wrist and sits him back down.

“No, wait. Wait. Why not? I think you’d make a great couple,” Wooyoung nods, and he isn’t lying. Now that he thinks about it, Yeosang could really be Hongjoong’s type. Hot, quiet but funny, smart, sarcastic if he wants to, totally different in private. He’s probably kinky as hell too, all stuff Hongjoong has confessed to liking when San, Seonghwa, Hongjoong, and he got too drunk once. “Why don’t you just… do something bold. Not like yourself.”

“Like what?”

“We’re at a party! Go pull him in to dance or something. And don’t shy away; there’s always tension in those moments, so you just gotta… play with it. Kiss him or something.”

Worked for Wooyoung last year, he guesses.

“Would that… work?”

“That always works,” Wooyoung laughs, and pulls Yeosang up. He fiddles with his hair, pushing it further up his forehead, straightening up Yeosang’s collar. “Go get your man,” he pats Yeosang’s butt playfully, and pushes him to where his friends are.

When he gets there, San notices the happy expression on his face, probably, because he pulls Wooyoung into him to shout in his ear. “What’s up?

“Nothing,” Wooyoung grins and mouths the words back.

“Are you gonna hook up with someone tonight?” San asks again, an eyebrow raised when he pulls away, and Wooyoung shakes his head.

Not tonight. He’s good. Plus… seeing the show will be so much fun.

It _is_ a lot of fun to sit back and dance with San, Yunho, Seonghwa, and Jongho, Wooyoung mouthing to all of them to say nothing with a finger on his lips, and watch giddily as Yeosang tries to make a move on Hongjoong. Initially Hongjoong is surprised, Wooyoung can tell; everyone can probably tell, but a few seconds later, when he realizes that Yeosang pushing closer to him is his hesitant way to get him to dance, he wraps his hands around Yeosang’s neck and slots his body closer to his, Yeosang’s arms coming up to rest on his hips.

Wooyoung resists the urge to pump a fist into the air, and instead pulls the rest to the makeshift bar, to get drinks and semi-awkwardly hang around against the wall as they watch. The others seem to hold just as much interest in this as him, trying to make a circle and not stare, and yet completely failing.

One song later a slow one comes on (Seonghwa refuses to admit he had anything to do with it), and Yeosang gets enough courage to press his forehead to Hongjoong’s. Wooyoung giggles in his hand and lays against Jongho, watching as Hongjoong bites his lip into his mouth, even from as far away as they are.

“They’re really gonna make out, oh my god, I can’t believe this,” San shouts between them, holding tightly onto Seonghwa and Yunho both.

They do. A little bit later, Hongjoong asks Yeosang something, and Yeosang shakily nods, and then their lips are connected and they’re _kissing_. Hongjoong’s hands reach out to hold Yeosang’s neck and jaw, tied almost into his hair, and Yeosang shifts, pressing closer to Hongjoong.

Wooyoung breaks into happy laughter, clinging onto Jongho’s arm and watching as Jongho clings right back, grinning.

“I knew he’d make it,” Jongho says, getting Wooyoung’s eyes on him.

“Wait… _you knew?”_

“Yeah,” Jongho laughs. “He told me last semester, when we left a party. I essentially made him, when I told him about who I was dating.”

“Wait, who?” Wooyoung’s eyes widen. _What?_

“Secret,” Jongho winks, and turns him back around to stare at Yeosang and Hongjoong.

Jongho will have some explanations to give. But also… Damn. Yeosang really _did this._ In the space of an evening, he managed to actually get the person he was crushing on, and Wooyoung somehow _helped_.

In the back of his mind, he realizes that’s how they all started their relationships: at parties.

Grin dwindling to a soft smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, Wooyoung turns to Yunho. “Hey, Yunho-ya. Can I ask you something?”

A bell softly rings out as Wooyoung opens the heavy door. Grocery stores past midnight are liminal spaces, but this one… this one Wooyoung thinks might twist more than his brain.

He turns the corner, and goes to the candy aisle, picks up the first thing that catches his eye. It’s a KitKat. Turning around, he places it on the counter, and looks up into Mingi’s wide, surprised eyes.

“Can I have this? And a few minutes to talk to you?”

“Uh… anything you want?”

Perched up on the counter, legs dangling under him, Wooyoung looks down at Mingi who’s sitting on the chair and smiles. Mingi still looks taken aback, shocked.

“Why do you look like that?” Wooyoung teases with a laugh, poking Mingi’s chair with his foot.

“I mean…” and he swallows, making Wooyoung chuckle again. “You look like this, and… I don’t know, weren’t you supposed to be at the party?”

“Like this how?” Wooyoung grins. “And yeah, I was, but I came here.”

“I mean… come on, Woo.”

Wooyoung gets it. When he planned his outfit before he knew Mingi wouldn’t make it, he thought about what would get Mingi most. And it looks like it worked. Mingi’s hand on the counter twitches next to Wooyoung’s thigh; he’s playing with his fingers, fiddling them together.

Without hesitating, Wooyoung reaches out to take it in his, tangle their fingers together and rest them on his thigh, over the fake leather.

He did think about what would make Mingi _lose it_ : the leather pants, a buttoned-up dark grey shirt tucked half into it and partly unbuttoned, the gray blazer he stole from Mingi draped over. The choker around his throat, his hair messed up and styled back.

For once, he wanted Mingi to look at him in public, and for him to look back.

“Woo…”

“Did you know Yeosang likes Hongjoong?” Wooyoung asks, looking down at their hands. “He told me tonight, and then somehow, he actually managed to get Hongjoong-hyung. They made out, you missed the show,” he chuckles. “I never thought that would be possible, you know, never even crossed my mind. But I guess… I looked at them then and they looked _so good_ in that moment, and I’m sure Yeosang is probably getting some right now, which… _gross_ to think about, but also, goals.

“When he asked me what to do, I told him to just go for it. Do something bold, not like himself. And it felt like such _me_ advice… you know, I think everyone thinks I’m the bold one. I myself think I’m the bold one, that you know… just does shit, without hesitation.

“But I think I’ve hesitated quite a while with something. Quite a long fucking time. I don’t think I’m that bold, not at all.”

When he looks up, Mingi is staring at him, mouth open, jaw dropped. Wooyoung broke him, probably.

He laughs, pulling his hand back, pressing Mingi’s onto his own thigh to leave it there. “But yeah… think I shouldn’t anymore. I think it’s time I come to terms with things, so I’m here to tell you that I’m trying. Yeah.”

When he looks back up, Mingi’s still quiet, jaw dropped.

“Did I really break you?”

“I… no, just… I’m not really sure this is happening.”

“It is. I’m not messing with you. I mean… not anymore.”

“Woo…”

And a chill, so unreasonable and so, so foreign runs through Wooyoung. What if he— “I mean, unless you don’t want me. Which, fair, huh, I didn’t even ask if—”

“No, no,” Mingi’s hand tightens almost desperately on him. “No, I want you. I want you a lot.”

“You do?”

It’s Mingi who laughs this time, moving his chair a centimeter closer, out of instinct. “Yeah. Are you kidding me? I’ve wanted you since the beginning. You’re… you’re amazing, Woo.”

“Huh? Me?” Wooyoung laughs. He’s been a mess with Mingi since the start; what would he want?

“Yeah, listen... I like you so much. So so much,” Mingi swallows, his mouth dropping open, looking by all means like he has nothing to say and everything to say at the same time. “If you have no idea, that’s really stupid because I feel like I’ve never bothered hiding it.”

“No, no, I knew. I think I knew,” Wooyoung replies, looking into Mingi’s eyes. “I just… didn’t wanna admit it for a while, I’m sorry. I think we, _I,_ had to go through some stuff before I could realize it. I was shitty with your feelings, and I don’t expect you to ever forgive me, but I think I’m better now with my own too.”

Mingi’s mouth drops. “What… made you change your mind?”

“Oh, nothing really,” Wooyoung shrugs. “Felt like the natural progression of things. Plus… I invited you to my place, let you fuck me with my parents sleeping next door, and then let you come in me the morning after. I think after that, denial felt pretty stupid.

“It’s just… it’s been a long time coming, yeah.” Mingi laughs, full and throaty, pitched, throwing his head back. Wooyoung almost blushes. “Please say this place doesn’t have like… audio recording.”

“It doesn’t,” Mingi turns back, grinning, and the weight in his eyes is so… there when he looks at Wooyoung. Is this how he’s always looked and Wooyoung just didn’t see? Or did he just not want to see?

“And seeing Yeosang and Hongjoong tonight just felt nice. I think I realized they deserve it, and maybe so do I.”

Mingi grins at him, wider than Wooyoung’s ever seen him. “I wanna kiss you so bad right now.”

Wooyoung grins back. “What time do you get off?”

Right at 2:00 AM and not a moment after, Mingi locks the door to the convenience store, turns around, and picks Wooyoung up in his arms to kiss him stupid.

Wooyoung laughs, winding his arms around Mingi’s neck, and kisses him back, and this time, it means something.

When he intertwines Mingi’s fingers with his own, the lights of their never-sleeping campus illuminating the way, when he waves his other hand to an acquaintance he sees on the street, as normal as ever, when they pass his dorm and Wooyoung doesn’t care anymore about who’s going to see them, it means something.

It means a lot to leave his shoes by the entrance this time, in a pile because Mingi’s pull on his hand is insistent and heavy, giggling along and Wooyoung isn’t irrationally afraid of his voice echoing in Mingi’s apartment anymore.

When Mingi presses him against the door, Wooyoung’s legs around his waist and Mingi biting marks into his neck with a smile, Wooyoung tightens his arms around his shoulders and laughs freely because it _tickles_. When Mingi presses him into the bed to bite more marks on his navel, hands scrunching his shirt up his chest, Wooyoung lets him, his breathing quickening, his heart beating harder than ever in his chest when he looks down.

And well… Wooyoung could get used to Mingi inside him mattering. Especially when this time, Wooyoung showers in his bathroom for the first time, borrows a shirt and underwear, and _stays._

They have a lot to figure out, but it matters nonetheless.

“I think I’m gonna switch my major,” Mingi announces. From his place on his bed, Wooyoung stares at him.

Mingi turns his desk chair around to stare back at Wooyoung.

“Why?” Wooyoung asks, entirely too direct.

“I don’t know. Does it really… does it really matter what I do?”

“It does. You’re good at it. That’s what you like to do, right?”

“You think so?” Mingi asks, with that dash of hope in his voice that tells Wooyoung that in that moment, what he says matters. He sighs.

“Come here.”

Mingi joins him on his bed, laying on Wooyoung’s shoulder. Wooyoung pulls out his phone, and scrolls to last year, all the way back to May.

He gives the phone to Mingi and hides his face in his hands. He doesn’t need to see to know exactly what he’s doing; his mind remembers.

The sound of Mingi’s voice filters tiny through the phone speakers. Wooyoung knows the moves by heart, the hard, powerful pushes of his body, like he’s fighting the music. At the start, before his rap mellows out. And so do Wooyoung’s moves, turning inwards, more graceful. More…

“When was this?” Mingi whispers, shock filtering through his whisper.

“Last May, I think?”

“Did I… send this to you?”

“Yeah,” Wooyoung chuckles, fiddling with the bottom of Mingi’s hoodie in his lap. “You were drunk. You don’t remember?”

“Not at all. I haven’t… shown this to anyone. Ever.”

“Really?” Wooyoung chuckles. He’s not surprised.

“The lyrics… Fuck, I can’t believe I did that. Did you delete the texts?”

“You did. Right after you sent it to me.”

“Fuck. I’m…” he curses under his breath. “I can’t believe I did that. Did you… figure it out?”

“To be fair, I think I had figured it out long before that point. It’s just… I danced to it, right? I knew _something._ Was just too in my head to really know what, though.”

Mingi locks Wooyoung’s phone, puts it away. All of a sudden, Wooyoung finds himself with a lapful of giant, and fingers tilting his chin up. “I can’t believe you actually choreographed to that. All the way back then.”

“Don’t call me out.”

Mingi doesn’t; instead, he kisses Wooyoung. Wooyoung smiles on his lips, and fists his hands in the front of Mingi’s shirt.

Tucked into the end of the booth of the bar-club, between Mingi and the wall, Wooyoung sips at his drink. Seonghwa and San’s conversation flows over him, Mingi’s hand on his knee, under the table, comforting.

Suddenly, he hears his name called. “Wooyoung?”

“Hmm?” He snaps his head to Hongjoong, whose raspy voice is barely audible over the loud music. Wooyoung feels bad for him; he was supposed to be up on stage tonight for their biggest gig so far this year, but he can’t, because he didn’t recover quickly enough to practice.

“Did you hear me?”

“Nope, what’d you say?”

“Asked if you wanted to join us tomorrow for this fair thing.”

Oh.

“Nah, have plans, sorry,” he tells Hongjoong, feeling how Mingi’s hand tightens on his knee. Everybody turns his attention away from him, and Mingi reaches closer.

“Are you feeling okay?”

“Yeah. Why not?” Wooyoung whispers back, looking at Mingi.

“You didn’t even listen to what it was about before saying no.”

Wooyoung lifts an eyebrow. “Last week, you said you wanted to go to that new manhwa, cartoon, whatever, cafe tomorrow.”

The rise of Mingi’s eyebrow is quite comical. “Oh fuck. Did I?”

“Yeah. Did you forget?” Wooyoung chuckles, Mingi’s head dropping on his shoulder. The heat of his breath travels through Wooyoung’s button-up, spreading goosebumps down his body.

He turns his head to Mingi’s ear. “Are you nervous?”

A pause. Mingi lifts his head the slightest bit, but Wooyoung still can’t see his face. “I’m fucking terrified.”

Wooyoung chuckles. Their biggest gig, and because of Hongjoong’s voice, he has to do it by himself, and in a language probably none of these people know. Wooyoung would be terrified too.

“It’s gonna be okay. You’re good,” Wooyoung threads his fingers through Mingi’s on his thigh, and squeezes his hand once, feels Mingi squeeze it back.

“Mmm,” Mingi lifts his head, and looks right at Wooyoung. “Give me some encouragement?” he asks, eyes staring into Wooyoung’s.

Wooyoung holds his breath. He knows what Mingi is asking, the ball he’s putting in Wooyoung’s court. The choice Wooyoung has. He knows Mingi would be okay with any choice, any of the two, but…

Wooyoung might be okay with any of them too.

He pulls Mingi forward by his shirt and into his lips. Slow, soft, Wooyoung can’t help but perk his ears, trembling slightly. He expects gasps, screeches, _I told you so_ ’s, something… and hears nothing besides a small lull in conversation, and the way it picks back up again, intentional.

It’s easier to tell himself that in this busy bar, with all his friends and the table, it’s actually just him and Mingi. With the way Mingi’s hand tightens in his, and his full lips slide alongside Wooyoung’s, building that tingling sensation in his stomach Wooyoung feels every time he kisses Mingi. Without fail.

Pulling away, Mingi stares at him with parted lips and shock painted across his face, close. “I didn’t…” he whispers in his ear.

“Go,” Wooyoung notices the time, and shoos him away. Mingi pulls back, just for a second, but then like a magnet he comes back, and—

“I love you.” His gravelly voice sends chills through Wooyoung. Full-body shudders, from the tips of his fingers right to his heart.

Mingi turns around. Yunho and San make way for him to head out, and Mingi doesn’t look back as he goes backstage. Wooyoung is left looking after him for just a second too long, maybe.

Enough for San to elbow him. “So…”

“Don’t even start,” Wooyoung warns. Doing it and talking about it are two different things.

When Mingi gets up on stage as the opening act, lights dimming across the bar… Wooyoung can’t stop looking. Eyes closed, Mingi lifts the microphone to his mouth, his lips shaping around the Korean words he punches out in spit-fire rhythm. And when he opens them…

He stares right at Wooyoung.

_Even if I beat double every time you leave_

_And you don’t know the way you twist me up_

_Kiss me, and I’ll take you to a whole new world_

That night, with Wooyoung wrapped tightly around him, Mingi’s hair tickles his cheek. Wooyoung lets out a moan Mingi echoes in his neck that sends shudders all throughout him and Wooyoung...

He knows.

“I love you too.”

Mingi’s smile blooms in his neck, and he lifts his head up to look at Wooyoung. Wooyoung smiles back, biting his bottom lip in his mouth, and arches up when Mingi leans down, to meet halfway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I'm clearly not cut out to be a lyricist pls ignore me.)
> 
> So, yes... this has been my baby! I wrote this for a lot of reasons, one is to really explore how defining and building a relationship around sex would be like, while running a lot of feelings under it that might or might not come out that easily. Two, because I have fallen /hard/ for woogi and added one more pairing to an already huge list, and three... because I really fell for this AU and setting and them, and especially woo's personality and mingi's amazing self, that just put together..... ugh. Sparks. Fire. Fireworks.
> 
> So I hope you enjoyed it! Please leave a comment, I'd love to hear what you think. <3 And as always, find me on twt or curiouscat @bbysvts! <3


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